Start Where You Begin [2/2]
part one
“You are behaving oddly,” Radek said to Rodney, slapping Kavanagh’s hands away as the man made a grab for a donut. “No,” he snapped, as if talking to his wife’s yappy dog.
“I’m not behaving oddly,” Rodney protested. He bit into a jelly-filled donut and gave Kavanagh a smug, powdery grin.
“See,” Radek narrowed his eyes at him, “you are in far too good a mood. It is disconcerting.”
“Guess who’s back?” he asked brightly.
“Daniel Jackson.”
Rodney’s face fell into a scowl.
“What?” Radek said mock-innocently, eyes wide. “You told me to guess.”
“Yes, well, it was an easy deduction,” Rodney said, somewhat bitter, “since summer is rapidly coming to a close, and who does Nick think he’s kidding?” Nick was as wild as his mother, with a skewed sort of logic that’d continuously gotten him into trouble, and Rodney really hadn’t recognized him. Glasses, for god’s sake. Light brown hair, instead of his usual jet black. Was he trying his father’s persona on for size?
“Nicky is merely misguided, as his mother is a crazy woman.”
“His mother’s a klepto,” Rodney amended slightly. “Hot, though.”
“Yet this does not explain your cheerfulness,” Radek said, swinging the conversation neatly back around. “Since you mostly cannot stand Dr. Jackson.”
“Oh, fine,” Rodney snapped, but there wasn’t much bite to it. “I’m going out with Sheppard.”
Radek’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Going out where?”
“To eat. Dinner. As in a date,” Rodney clarified, annoyed, because Radek, the Czech bastard, knew exactly what he’d meant.
A grin spread across Radek’s mouth. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes, good. You deserve some fun. My wife, she is ready to set you up, and I do not think you would like her taste in men,” he said wryly, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Rodney snorted. Radek was by no means a terrible catch, but Rodney was never, ever going to tell him that. It was bad enough he acknowledged his intelligence on an almost daily basis. “Of course,” he said, “this won’t be much of date, since I’ll have to be back by eight.”
Radek stared at him. “Why?”
“George’s bedtime.”
“Rodney,” Radek said patiently, “I am sure Ronon can handle putting George to bed this once.”
“Which isn’t the point.” Rodney glared at Kavanagh as the man slunk forward and grabbed a glazed donut, but graciously let him slide, even when he sent Rodney a petulant sneer. He was going to have to talk to Samantha at the Institute about getting another lackey, because Kavanagh was getting on his last nerve.
“Are we going to work at any time today?” Kavanagh asked haughtily.
Radek growled at him. “We are going to work. You are going to sit quietly in your corner until we need you to hold something still.” He turned to Rodney and added, “He is less useful than a trained monkey,” which sounded exactly like something Rodney himself would say, and it was only slightly creepy hearing it come from Radek.
Mostly, Rodney was just proud.
*
Rodney once spent a full year in Siberia with a passel of hippie environmentalists, building up an astronomical tolerance for vodka and bearded women, but that hell didn't even compare to Tiffany in a righteous snit. Or, you know, teething.
The books and magazines assured him that cold, water-filled teething rings did wonders, but those books and magazines could just bite Rodney's ass, because Tiffany hated them and the horses they rode in on. A wet washcloth - after three frantic calls to Carson - seemed to actually work, and she was happily sucking on the terrycloth, propped up in the corner of the couch, and Rodney was dead, numb, not quite passed out but lurching dangerously towards it, spread out across his living room floor.
He stared up blankly, raw eyes frozen wide. Something scratched and dug at his t-shirt, small teeth scraped his side as the material bunched and pulled, and somehow Walter had gotten out of the kitchen, but Rodney really didn't care.
Gray dawn was steadily stealing across the ceiling. He was fairly sure it was Thursday. A furry nose nudged his cheek, there was a terse yank on his hair, and he rolled his head to blink at Walter, all twitching whiskers and big bulging eyes and tiny sharp teeth. Past him, Rodney could see the old baby gate and the hole Walter'd made in the mesh; little pieces of plastic scattered on the rug. He'd had an industrious night. Too bad his pea-sized, curious brain had led him straight back to his jailor. Though Rodney honestly didn't have the energy to do anything about it.
He half-heartedly lifted a hand and Walter took off for the couch, legs kicking up behind him. Great.
There was a rustle-thump from the stairwell, and Rodney tipped his head back to see George slowly making his way down the steps, one hand clutching the railing, his other fisting the tied-together shoelaces of an old pair of Rodney’s sneakers. He’d taken to dragging them around the house like a security blanket, which was odd, but hey. Whatever made him happy.
Rodney mustered up a smile for the toddler, and George ran full tilt for him as soon as he hit the landing, clocking him in the head with the shoes and toppling against his side with a too-wide-awake laugh.
Rodney would’ve given his-well, not any of his limbs, actually, but maybe a box full of donuts or his favorite pen or something to be able to go back up to bed and sleep for at least another three hours. Instead, he hefted himself to his feet, let George turn on his cartoons, and stumbled into the kitchen to make breakfast.
*
John watched bemusedly, fists on his hips, as the youngest member of the East Wallingford police force wriggled his way under David Parrish’s front porch.
“I think it’s a-oh, shit.” Ford scrambled backwards so fast he landed sprawled on his ass, then crab-walked another yard before twisting around onto his knees, feet, and diving behind John.
“What the hell?” John had his sidearm out just in time to catch sight of the sloped head and telltale black and white markings of an abnormally - to John, at least, who’d never seen one outside of the TV - huge skunk, illuminated by the beam of Ford’s hastily dropped flashlight.
It ambled out, sniffed curiously in their direction, then went right back under the porch, plumed tail luckily still lowered and un-cocked.
“There’s your wild animal.” He grinned at Parrish. There was no way in hell he was gonna even attempt to remove that.
“Call in Dex,” Ford said, still hovering behind John.
“It’s a little early to call someone out for a skunk,” John said. The sky was still mostly dark, the moon a pale white outline. He tended to lose track of time on the nightshift, but he’d guess it was around five.
Ford shrugged. “He’s probably up anyway. McKay makes a lot of noise. Better to get ‘em while he’s sleepy, too.”
“Who, Dex or the skunk?”
Beside John, Parrish worried his fingers in the hem of his shirt. “Oh, I’d leave him there, you know, but Betsy gets into absolutely everything,” he fretted, and Betsy, a handsome, bluetick coonhound, pressed her nose up against the screen door and woofed balefully at them.
Half of John’s mouth quirked up. “All right,” he told Ford. “Call in Dex.” He was more than a little curious about the man, anyway. Rodney’s neighbor. Who, in addition to being hot, was also apparently dreamy.
He listened absently as Ford flipped open his cell and dialed Dex, and Parrish had wandered in and out of the house with a couple of hot mugs of coffee by the time a lifted pickup with monster wheels pulled into the drive, crunching over the gravel and grinding to a stop next to the police SUV.
Dex - large, dreadlocked and, wow, Daisy was so right about his hotness - slid the caged skunk into the bed of his truck just about twenty minutes later. The trick, apparently, was to offer a mound of tasty treats and be incredibly still, quiet and patient.
Parrish fidgeted nervously around a thank you, and John held out a hand.
Dex engulfed it with his own and growled, “Watch it with McKay,” completely out of nowhere, and John grimaced as Dex’s grip tightened, cracking his knuckles audibly before releasing him.
“Um.” John very carefully did not shake his throbbing fingers.
“This is off record, right?” Dex asked Ford.
John’s eyes shot wide. He wasn’t going to punch him, was he?
“Non-capture, skunk wandered off,” Ford said, smiling, then added for John, “Procedure is euthanasia and rabies testing for most wild animal captures.”
“Nothing wrong with him,” Dex said, disgruntled. Disgruntled seemed to be a default with him. He was kind of intimidating. John decided that he never ever wanted to get on his bad side - he was pretty sure it’d involve lots of pain and humiliation, with a high probability of tears.
Dex sent him a sharp grin before climbing inside the truck cab, slamming the door shut.
John scrounged up a smile and gave him a loose salute as he drove off.
*
Rodney couldn’t remember ever getting so wound up about a date. Granted, he had trouble remembering past dates in general, since lately everything was a blur of dirty diapers and strained peas and bedtime stories about puppies and that Spanish cartoon George was obsessed with.
Daisy was sprawled on her stomach on his couch, legs kicked up, head leaning on one hand, idly flipping through the TV channels with a rabbit-gnawed remote - most of the buttons were entirely unreadable.
Tiffany was in her bouncy chair, staring fixedly at her lamp, listening to the plink-plink muzak of comatose babies everywhere, and George was squeezed into the tight triangle of space between the side table and Rodney’s overstuffed recliner, playing with his plastic dinosaurs, a naked Malibu Barbie, and an avocado colored colander.
“You realize this is weird, right?” Daisy asked.
“Weird, what?” Rodney looked down at himself. “It’s the pants, isn’t it? I look like a banker.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “I meant,” she said, “that I’m here, and you’re going out with my dad.”
Rodney paused. “Um. I didn’t think-I mean, I’m sure it’s-do you have a-” he flapped a hand, “-problem with this? Because if you do, you should’ve said something before, since not showing is tacky and I’m far too old to stand someone up anyway-”
“Doc,” Daisy said, “it’s fine. It’s just weird seeing you trying to impress my dad, who’s, like, the biggest slice of cheese on the planet.”
“Somehow, I doubt he’d appreciate you telling me that.”
“It’s kind of hard for him to hide it,” she said, a half-resigned, half-amused expression on her face.
“So,” Rodney shifted on his feet, smoothing hands over his shirt, “I don’t look like a banker?”
She scrunched up her nose and said, “You should just wear jeans.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You have inside information.” It wasn’t a question.
“Maybe.” She grinned. Then she shifted up and lounged against the corner of the couch, fingers toying with the lip of her water glass resting on the side table. “So. What do you know about Nick Jackson?”
“No comment.” It was odd, but Rodney felt strangely maternal around Daisy, like he was one step away from talking about his feelings or gossiping about boys, and if that ever actually happened, he was pretty sure he’d have to shoot himself.
“He’s cute.”
Rodney snorted. “His father’s a pouty-lipped, glorified librarian and his mother’s a manipulative harpy with a pretentious accent.”
“Still.” She sighed.
“There is every possibility he’ll grow up to be an archeologist,” Rodney warned her, wagging a finger. “Or a high-priced whore who sleeps his way into political mayhem.”
Daisy cocked her head. “Should you be talking like that around me?”
“Probably not,” Rodney admitted, although as long as Daisy didn’t repeat anything potentially damaging - which he didn’t think she would - he wasn’t going to bother curbing his tongue around her. He had to do that often enough with his students, since he’d found an overabundance of crying often led to painful parent-teacher conferences, and some parents were not only horrendously narrow-minded, but most times on a lower comprehension scale than their kids, making the conferences a complete waste of his time and incredibly, stab-your-brain dull.
“Awesome.” Daisy grinned lazily. “I’m still going out with Nick.”
“Hold up, wait.” Rodney raised a hand. “You’re going out with him? Does your father know this?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Duh. Of course not.”
“And you’re not worried I’ll let him in on this little secret tonight?”
“Doc, if you two end up discussing my love-life on your date,” she shook her head, “it’ll just be sad.”
Rodney conceded the point. And then went to get changed.
*
Though John would deny it to his death, he was a little nervous. Until he realized Rodney was just as, if not more nervous than him, twisting his fingers in a paper napkin, eyes big and borderline panicky, and his cool came back in spades. He grinned loosely across the table at him.
“I’m trying to figure out,” Rodney said slowly, “how I rate a crummy pizza joint.”
John grinned wider. “You love this place,” he said. Daisy could occasionally be surprisingly helpful.
“Yes, yes,” Rodney said, nodding, finally relaxing a bit in his seat. “But.” He glanced around, expression still sort of affronted.
The interior of the place was a joke. Framed maps of Italy, crayoned drawings from the local kids of the famous boot, were crammed tight on the walls. The tables were checkerboard white and red, the spray of flowers dotting the center laughably fake. The open kitchen was loud - they tossed pies, and lost more than a few - and the floor was normally packed tight for dinner.
John thought it was great, and he especially loved the old Asteroids game in the corner, tucked between the two single stalled bathrooms. He jerked his head towards the group of teens gathered around it. “Bet we can get those kids off of that with five bucks,” he said.
Rodney looked like he really wanted to say something biting, but then got to his feet with a shrug. “Sure, why not, since apparently you’ve got the social acuity of a fourteen-year-old.”
“I’m pretty competitive, too,” John said brightly, following Rodney through the wind of overtaxed tables.
Rodney paused and turned to look at him archly. “Are you going to cry if I don’t let you win?”
“Maybe.” John sort of bounced on his heels, feeling playful. “I don’t like to imagine that sort of trauma, though.”
John could see a smile hidden at the downslope of Rodney’s mouth, shining in his eyes even as he grumbled, “Prepare to get your ass kicked, Sheppard.”
*
Because he was an excellent teacher, despite having zero tolerance for fools and morons, Rodney handed out his email on the first day of class, and made himself available to students after school hours for most of the entire semester. He encouraged an open dialogue, even if that dialogue was comprised mostly of him yelling, and they seemed to appreciate his candor. It was one of the reasons the administration had given him the extremes, remedial and advanced. He snapped the one group into shape without mercy and made the other work harder than they’d ever worked before.
Nick Jackson wasn’t in either of his sections. He was a decent student, but tended to skate by without really trying. Felger, Rodney’s grade partner, almost always spent half his lunch bemoaning the kid’s wasted potential.
Rodney really didn’t care.
“All right, spit it out, why are you here?” he said irritably after Nick slid inside his room, closing the door behind him.
Nick cleared his throat, fidgeting in front of Rodney’s desk. “So, you’re, uh, dating Mr. Sheppard, right?”
Rodney sharpened a glare on him. “And that is any of your business how?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “I really like Daisy.”
Rodney stared at him blankly, waited a beat, then said, “Really, where are you going with this? Because as we speak, Jeremy Fitzhugh is having a spastic fit in the hall over the C I gave him on his horrendously ill-prepared paper on Euclidean dynamics.” He could see the student’s red face through the narrow pane of glass inset in the door.
“Mr. Sheppard, he.” Nick dipped his head, a move reminiscent of his father, but somehow he managed to make it look less affected and more sincere. “I think he’s gotten a bad impression of me.”
“I can’t see how,” Rodney said, widening his eyes in mock-wonder. Seriously, Nick was a pain in the ass, and dear god, he was using Jackson’s infamous pout. Jesus. “Fine, fine. I’ll try to,” he grimaced, “say something nice about you, but I can’t promise it’ll make any difference. Now get out of here and let Jeremy in before he hyperventilates himself into passing out.”
“Thanks, Dr. McKay,” Nick said brightly, and his smile was pretty much the only physical feature - other than his dark hair, of course, which Rodney still wasn’t sure why he’d gotten rid of - that he’d blatantly inherited from his mother. Try as he might, Rodney’d never been able to see any guile hidden in the way it lit up his entire face, and Vala had that same exact charm.
He grumbled, “Yes, of course,” and waved him off with a glower he, embarrassingly, actually had to force.
*
Rodney wasn’t sure he and John were actually dating. They met at Pico’s on Tuesdays and Fridays, and John held the highest score at Asteroids and Rodney pondered half-hearted plots to break in late at night and take the thing apart, hiding all the pieces, but he was secretly amused by John’s victory dance - Daisy was right; for all his cool, he could be appealingly dorky.
Most times they ended up making out in John’s truck. Occasionally, when Rodney slumped down exhausted in the booth with half-lidded eyes and barely contained yawns, they’d part ways at the door, and John would squeeze his arm, shackle his wrist and reel Rodney in for a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth.
With the onslaught of fall and school, Rodney’s hours were insane - he took the rugrats to the lab three evenings a week, let them play with the robot - and there had to be something very, very wrong with John because he a) took what little Rodney gave him without complaint, and b) never asked why Rodney had so little to give. Rodney was torn between relief at the casualness of their apparent relationship and being pissed off that John wasn’t more invested. Or hurt. He could’ve been a little hurt.
Rodney, of course, was getting dangerously attached. It had something to do with his complete lack of a social life outside of John, maybe, but mostly he was sure it was because John practically came alive under his hands, flushed and breathless with this fascinating thread of control, a sharpness in his dark eyes holding him back, since, seriously, there was only so much fooling around two thirty-somethings could do in the extended cab of a Ford truck.
So, basically, that was why Rodney finally gave in and asked Daisy if she could take over babysitting duties when Dex’s time was up, then he told John he was taking him on a proper adult date, and to wear a tie.
John didn’t wear a tie.
It was inconsequential, though, since Rodney’d been mainly joking about that part, and he tugged on the sleeves of his sport coat and worried the buttons on his shirt while John just smirked at him over the set of flickering candlesticks.
It felt weird having an entire kid-free evening spread before him. Rodney’s cell was heavy in his pocket, and he fought the urge to check the settings again, making sure the ring was loud enough to be heard over the din of the restaurant.
His fingers gripped the edge of the table, and he realized, belatedly, while John’s gaze idly scanned their surroundings, that before they’d always been doing something.
They’d played Asteroids and Miss PacMan or drew on the paper placemats - Rodney quizzing John and alternately lamenting and salivating over his completely lazy math skills; John sketching jet fighters and spaceships and race cars and dogs - and they’d never had to sit there with nothing but silence between them, relying on a conversation sally that neither one of them were particularly good at.
And then John flashed him a half-smile, leaned forward, whispered conspiratorially, “I’m pretty sure our waiter is a robot,” and suddenly everything was familiar again.
*
Cosmically, Rodney figured, someone really, really hated him, because his cell rang the second they stepped out of the restaurant.
“Doc,” Daisy said as soon as he answered, “I’m so sorry, but George is, like, hysterical, and I can’t calm him down.”
“What happened?” Rodney asked shortly, visions of bloody hands, cracked skulls, serial killers hiding in closets spinning through his mind. He could hear hiccupping sobs in the background, and he clutched his cell in a tight, white-knuckled grip.
“Everything okay?” John leaned over to murmur, and Rodney waved him off.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Daisy said. She sounded strung out and distressed.
“All right, fine, hold on and I’ll be right there.” Rodney thumbed off the cell and rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he said.
“Hey, no. It’s fine.” John slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“Right, right,” Rodney said, and he was quiet the whole ride, jaw tight, because this was George. George who’d lost his parents and he should have known this whole date was a bad idea. George had a schedule, and he’d broken it just because he’d wanted to get into John’s pants, and there was no doubt in Rodney’s mind that this was his fault. He should have been home hours ago.
He swung into his driveway and was out of the car before John had a chance to scrabble for his seatbelt, and when he burst through the front door, there was a blur of George, practically throwing himself at Rodney’s legs.
“Hey,” Rodney said, trying for his best soothing tone, which wasn’t really very soothing, but George seemed to calm just from the sound of his voice. Rodney picked him up, wrapping his arms around him, hugging him to his chest, and George hiccupped wetly against his neck, fingers in a tight grip on his shirt. “You’re okay.”
“He. He just started, and he wouldn’t stop and Ronon’s not home and I didn’t know what to-”
“Don’t be stupid,” Rodney cut her off, rolling his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left him so long, it’s fine. How’s Tiffany?”
“Tiff’s fine.” Daisy nodded, and it looked a little like she’d been crying, too, her dark eyes rimmed in red. “Sound asleep.”
“Everything good?”
Rodney turned, and John was standing in the still-open doorway, hands on his hips. “Yes, um. Everything’s under control.”
John grinned. He stepped inside and peeked around at George’s face, half mashed into Rodney’s shoulder. “Hey there, big guy,” he said, soft, and George sniffled and lifted his head up, face damp and snotty, still clutching Rodney in a somewhat desperate grip.
“Wanna say hi, G?” Daisy asked, smiling. She still looked a little strung out and upset, but the smile seemed genuine enough.
George ducked down again. He said, “Hi,” muffled against Rodney’s now also damp and snotty shirt.
“So, I’ll just, uh.” Rodney shifted awkwardly on his feet.
John shook his head, mouth still curved up slightly. “It’s fine, Rodney. C’mon, kid,” he wrapped an arm around Daisy’s shoulders, “let’s go home.”
*
John had no idea what he was doing with Rodney.
In the passenger seat, Daisy sniffed and rubbed her wrist under her nose and asked, “Are you serious?”
“Huh?”
“With the doc. Are you serious, Dad, because he’s got kids,” Daisy said.
Firstly, John did not need this kind of pressure. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Secondly, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a kid, too.”
He could practically hear Daisy roll her eyes. “But I’m, like, full grown.”
John’s eye started twitching, and his brain hurt. “You are not full grown,” he said. Daisy would be full grown over his dead and rotting body. Sometimes he had flashes of her future wedding and John was always sobbing quietly in a corner.
Daisy sighed. “Sorry you couldn’t finish your date,” she said, slumping a little into his side.
It wasn’t that late, but John knew a crying baby could take a lot out of you. “Not your fault.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Wanna go get ice cream?”
She hooked her arm through his. “Ice cream would rock.”
*
John was so busy with work and planning Daisy’s birthday party and dodging weirdly frequent calls from Elizabeth that he didn’t notice Rodney was avoiding him for nearly a week.
It was an easy out, and John surprised himself a little by not wanting to take it.
“You’re avoiding me,” John said, slipping into the seat across from Rodney.
“I am not,” Rodney said without looking up. He had a notebook spread open, completely covered in near-indecipherable scratches, but John spotted a folded up copy of the Daily Times - Rodney had this love-hate relationship with the crossword puzzles. He complained about them being ridiculously simple, but he never missed completing one.
John grinned. “Are, too.”
Rodney gave him a pissy look, mouth tight and annoyed.
John wanted to kiss him until the lines bracketing it relaxed, and he freaked out inside for a split-second before resolutely shaking it off. He liked Rodney. Daisy liked Rodney. Rodney avoiding him had effectively killed whatever reserve John had felt before. Relationships were tough, and John would rather stab himself in the thigh than have some sort of conversation with Rodney about feelings, but he wasn’t going to let Rodney cut him off. Rodney had two kids, but Daisy had been worth it, worth everything, so he couldn’t think of any reason why this would be any different.
John was thinking about this as something permanent, and, okay, so maybe a cold sweat broke out all over his whole body, and maybe he wasn’t ready for anything heavy-duty now, hell, they hadn’t even slept together yet, but he also couldn’t imagine his life without Rodney. So it was really just a long stretch of someday, eventually, and he couldn’t help but look forward to it.
“I’m not avoiding you,” Rodney said, stubborn tilt to his chin.
John slumped down in the vinyl booth, grin widening. “Sure. So you’ll be at Daisy’s party.”
“Of course,” Rodney said, and John kind of loved him for the sudden bewildered look on his face, like it hadn’t even occurred to Rodney that avoiding John - which he so had been doing - would involve skipping out on Daisy’s birthday. “The Death Machine might even been finished.”
John winced. “I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”
Rodney waved a hand. “Don’t worry, it’ll be perfectly safe.” He frowned. “I’d advise stocking up on road flares, though, and a tire pump kit and-I’ve got a list, I’ll take her to AutoZone tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I have an extra reflective jacket.”
“Rodney-”
“I’ve already given her the Other Drivers Are Morons speech,” Rodney said, gripping his coffee cup between tight fingers. “Do you think we can convince her to wear a helmet?”
John arched an eyebrow.
“What?” Rodney asked, wide-eyed.
John shook his head. “Nothing.”
*
John heard the front screen door creak open and shut, the subsequent stomps up the stairs, and he stared up at the ceiling, wincing as a bedroom door slammed. Okay. He checked the clock over the stove. It was barely seven, and Daisy should’ve still been over at Rodney’s, and while temper tantrums weren’t exactly a strange occurrence for her, she hadn’t been in a mood since starting work on the car.
Sighing, John got up from the counter and made his way upstairs.
He knocked softly on her door. “Daize?”
“Go away.”
John groaned. He really, really hated it when she got like this. “Not gonna happen,” he said.
“Go. Away,” Daisy said again, voice louder, like she was standing directly on the other side of the door, talking into the wood.
“See, that’s not a very convincing argument. You should’ve gone for ‘I’m okay,’ and then low-balled me with some girl problems.” John heard her sigh, but the door remained firmly closed. He turned and slid down to sit on the floor, then rapped the thin wood over his shoulder with his knuckles.
She knocked back, right by his head.
Daisy was his baby girl, and he hated to see her hurting. He moved, pressed his ear up against the door. “What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m.” She paused, John waited. The best thing to do with her, with him, with any Sheppard, really, was to wait. “Mom called me. She’s not coming.”
John cursed under his breath. Daisy put up a strong front, John knew that. It didn’t matter that Daisy had told her not to come; parents were supposed to do the exact opposite of what their kids wanted them to do. John was pretty sure that was in a rule book somewhere.
Sorry wasn’t going to cut it, and like hell was John going to make any excuses for Elizabeth. Right now, she’d disappointed the most important person in John’s life.
“Rampant goat disease?” John said.
There was a choked off, watery laugh, and then the doorknob turned, and John shifted his weight just in time to avoid falling backwards into Daisy’s room.
“Hey,” he said, and Daisy, curled up on her knees, flung herself into John’s arms, and John held on tight and let her pretend she wasn’t crying.
*
Rodney would deny it until he died, but he maybe cried a little the morning George woke up and said, “Uncle Rodney.” It was barely crying. A slight welling of tears around his eyes, his cheeks weren’t even wet.
And then George wouldn’t stop saying ‘Uncle Rodney,’ wouldn’t stop talking, and Rodney realized George had come into his McKay heritage. He felt more sympathy for his parents than he ever had before. George had a running commentary for everything, and Rodney only understood half of what was coming out of his mouth, but his nephew was clearly a genius.
“He said thermonuclear the other day. Or maybe it was pancakes, but either way, genius,” Rodney said smugly.
Daisy rolled her eyes. “He calls Walter ‘doggy.’”
“You’ve misunderstood him,” Rodney said. Either that, or George was merely pointing out how dog-like Walter could be, because that kind of sound reasoning was not beyond a toddler McKay.
“He eats bugs.”
Rodney ignored her and blew a raspberry on Tiffany’s stomach before snapping up her onesy.
“He wears a colander on his head and runs into walls,” Daisy said.
Rodney huffed irritably, hefting Tiffany into his arms. She fisted a hand in his shirt collar and gurgled, and Rodney resigned himself to having drool all over him for the rest of the day. “Do you want your birthday present or not?”
Daisy perked up. “Yes, please.”
“It’s, uh.” Rodney fidgeted, suddenly nervous. “It’s not much.”
“Whatever, Doc. You already gave me a car,” she said.
“I didn’t give it to you. Your dad’ll be paying out the ass for that thing for years to come.” Rodney would not guarantee that it wouldn’t fall apart the first time Daisy drove it. It ate money faster than it ate gas.
Rodney nudged his closet door open wider with his foot and pointed towards a battered box. “That first.”
Daisy dropped to her knees and slid it out, tugging open the flaps. It really wasn’t much. He’d found a bunch of Jeannie’s old albums - The Clash, Joy Division, Michael Jackson, Rush, Yes, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground.
“They were my sister’s,” he said awkwardly when Daisy didn’t say anything at all, just made a noise in the back of her throat and started flipping through the records. “Figured maybe you’d like the same weird stuff.”
“Pink Floyd,” Daisy finally said, and Rodney couldn’t identify the strange tone of her voice. “The Ramones. Sex Pistols?”
Rodney grimaced. “Please tell me you’re not completely oblivious to punk rock. You’ll make me feel even older than I actually am.”
Daisy tipped her head back and looked up at him with huge, stunned eyes. “This is awesome.”
“Oh. Well.” Rodney felt his face heat. “If you dig deeper in the closet there’s a record player, too.”
Jumping to her feet, Daisy slung her arms around both Tiffany and Rodney, and Rodney held himself stiffly and blushed even more and huffed and said, “Yes, yes, you’re welcome, now get this junk out of here so George can make yet another brilliant but unnecessary fort.” George had been slowing and steadily taking over every nook and cranny of Rodney’s house with blankets and pillows and boxes of fruit roll-ups, but Rodney honestly didn’t care.
“You’re the best, Doc,” Daisy said. “Thank you.”
*
Daisy’s party was small, and mostly consisted of adults and Nicky Jackson. This didn’t actually make Rodney feel any more comfortable. He let George follow Dex around and kept Tiffany to himself, hoping her general adorableness would distract everyone from seeing the panic Rodney was sure was showing in his eyes. He’d never been very good at pretending everything was fine.
John looked good. John always looked good, it was one of the reasons Rodney was having trouble staying away from him. The other reasons had to do with his donkey laugh and his skinny legs and his addiction to ice cream and really bad sci-fi movies.
He had to remind himself constantly that George and Tiffany needed him.
John flopped down on the couch beside him and said, “Hey, McKay,” and Rodney leaned into him a little before jerking back. John frowned. “Okay.”
“No, I. This isn’t working,” Rodney said, and he had not meant to say that, at least not right then. He hugged Tiffany’s back up against his chest, and she squirmed a little in protest.
“Okay,” John said again, drawing the word out. “So you’re dumping me at my daughter’s birthday dinner?”
“Not, um.” Dumping sounded so harsh. And it also made Rodney’s mouth dry up, and he felt nauseous and a little dizzy and he wanted desperately to grab John’s hand and never let go. “Not really?”
John pursed his lips. His eyes were dark, darker than usual, and Rodney focused on the crows-feet, the lived-in skin, and thought maybe they were too old for this shit.
Rodney shook his head. “Never mind.”
“You don’t-”
“I’m freaking out. I mean, George was freaking out, and I’m not very good at this.” He waved his hand around. “Any of this. You, me.” He meant more than that - that he had no idea what he was doing with George or Tiffany or Walter or anyone - and with the way John’s face softened, he thought maybe John got that.
“You’re good, Rodney,” John said. “I’m not headed anywhere I don’t want to go.”
*
John was a dad, first and foremost. He’d done more than watch Daisy get this far, he’d raised her. She was her own person, yeah, but John helped shape her; would continue to help shape her for the rest of his life.
Rodney was a dad - thrust even more unexpectedly into the role than most, along with more problems. But he was definitely a dad, and John got that George and Tiffany were going to be first for Rodney in all things. He understood, and he was patient, and John would do anything he could to help.
If that meant backing down, it meant backing down. If that meant playing Candy Land with a talkative three-year-old while Rodney snored like a chainsaw on his living room couch, he’d totally take it. George lasted a half hour before tanking out himself.
Daisy yawned around a Blow Pop and shifted Tiffany higher on her lap. “Best party ever,” she said. She leaned her head against the back of John’s shoulder. “Thanks for inviting Nick.”
“And for the car,” John said, packing up the board game. George was sprawled out on his back, fingers curled tight around the green game piece.
“And for the car,” she obediently echoed. “And for the clothes and the skateboard and the cake. Did I show you what Doc McKay gave me?”
John nodded, then shifted so he could settle back against the couch, curling an arm around Daisy’s shoulders.
“Think we can find, like, a music store that sells records?” she asked.
“We could try,” he said. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Good birthday?”
“Yeah,” she said, soft.
*
“There is something wrong with you,” Radek said. “I do not like it.”
Rodney harrumphed. “You don’t have kids.”
Radek pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at him. “I have a spoiled lap dog and an anxiety-ridden robot who has now taken to screaming at closed doors. I do not need children.”
“I mean,” Rodney said, “you won’t be useful in helping me solve my current problem.” On the phone last night, Carson had told him that kids were resilient, that he hadn’t been neglecting them, that they’re doing better than fine, couldn’t he see that? But Carson had also thought George had needed therapy, and when it comes right down to it, Carson’s just a voodoo practitioner from the boonies of Scotland, so what would he really know?
Kids cried, Carson had said. Sometimes for no reason at all, or for some reason you couldn’t see, and you couldn’t keep them happy twenty four hours out of the day, but Rodney was damn well going to try.
Radek frowned at him. “You are going to mess up things with John, yes? And then you are going to be miserable, and you are going to make me miserable, which in turn will make Kavanagh miserable, which I am not against on principal, but there will be more yelling than I would like, and then we will get nothing done here for weeks.” He frowned harder, and poked Rodney in the chest with a finger. “You will think about this carefully, Rodney, or I may be forced to involve Cadman.”
Rodney gaped at him. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Radek said solemnly.
Rodney stared Radek down. Radek didn’t even flinch, though, and Rodney would do anything to keep Cadman from meddling - even more than usual - in his life. She was a minion of the devil who made possibly the best macaroni and cheese Rodney had ever tasted. She knew how to get Rodney to do things he didn’t want to do. It was baffling, considering Cadman was a trigger-happy hick townie. It might be the blonde hair.
“You,” Rodney said. “You’ll regret this.” Radek would regret this in the form of enforced bonding with Kavanagh over the new, utterly wrong, wrong, wrong calculations sent down from the institute.
Radek gave him a knowing, sly grin and said, “Not as much as you would have.”
*
Daisy rolled onto her back on the bed and held Tiffany above her. Tiffany giggled and waved her hands towards her, little hands clenched into fists. “You’re being stupid,” she said.
Rodney said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” and continued folding tiny little socks and pants and shirts and bibs and thought about how big Tiffany was getting, and how George needed new shoes.
“My dad likes you. He thinks you’re awesome,” Daisy said. She settled Tiffany down on her chest and looked over at him. “I think you’re awesome, and my opinion pretty much counts for everything.”
Rodney had never been called awesome before. He knew, of course, that he was amazing and a genius and more important than a whopping four-fifths of the entire population of earth, but it was different to hear something like that out-loud. He thought he should probably feel vindicated, but really he just felt, uh, loved. His face was hot, and there was a lump in his throat, and he chalked it all up to sleep-deprivation - Tiffany had kept him up half the night before with a slight fever and a cranky mouth.
“Okay,” he said, and Daisy beamed at him, and Rodney didn’t want to get his hopes up or anything, but everything seemed a little lighter than it had in weeks.
*
“I don’t like you,” John said, hands on his hips.
“Understood, sir,” Nick said, but he was smiling, the punk.
John really did not like Nick Jackson. Nick Jackson came off perfect in his pressed khakis and powder blue polo and something about him grated the hell out of John. And he hated that he was taking out Daisy. John would follow them in his own car if Daisy hadn’t made him promise he wouldn’t. Luckily, she hadn’t said anything about Ford.
“Daddy,” Daisy said, practically jumping down the stairs, “quit harassing Nicky, geez.”
John tugged on her pony-tail as she skipped past. “Ten o’clock.”
“Midnight,” Daisy countered.
“Ten thirty.”
“Eleven.”
John raised his eyebrows. He thought for sure it’d take longer to get there. “Deal,” he said, and they shook on it, because sometimes Daisy was as much of a dork as him.
John quickly assessed her outfit, deemed it okay - it covered all her important parts, at least, he’d never understand all the safety pins - and then grinned what he hoped was an appropriately threatening grin at Nick before saying, “You kids have fun.”
He felt gratified seeing Nick’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit.
He watched them leave, watched Nick back his shiny black BMW out of John’s driveway - John really, really, really didn’t like that boy - and then he closed the front door and slumped back against it and ignored the annoying prickling of his eyes, because John Sheppard did not cry, especially not about his daughter going out on her first date - and if it wasn’t her first, John didn’t want to know about it.
John still hadn’t gotten himself completely together when his doorbell rang ten minutes later.
Rodney was there, shifting restlessly on the balls of his feet and refusing to look at him.
“Hey,” John said. He curled a hand around his doorjamb and tried not to think about how Rodney looked - like this was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. Something tightened in John’s chest.
“I want you to realize what you’d be getting into,” Rodney said, cheeks red, staring at John’s front stoop.
“All right,” John said, slow.
“You’ve already done this once, and sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m not going to force you into, into,” he waved a hand, “this with me, but you need to know that-that it’s all or nothing. All three of us, or none of us.”
And that. That was kind of easy to decide. John almost smiled, and he rubbed a shaky hand across his forehead. “Rodney,” John said, and waited until Rodney looked up at him, mouth tight, eyes wary. “I get it, Rodney. I told you before.” He’d figured Rodney already knew this, but John was crap at talking about feelings with anybody except Daisy, and even then they mostly ate ice cream and talked with their eyebrows. John shrugged. “I’m always going to be a dad, too.”
Rodney’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Um.”
John could tell Rodney he didn’t want to do it again, all the hard parts between then and now, the sicknesses, injuries, tears, joys, hugs - he could, but it would probably be a lie. Fatherhood was the hardest adventure he’d ever embarked on, and he kind of loved everything about it. Even letting go.
“Come on,” John said, curling a hand over Rodney’s arm and tugging him further inside. “I’ve got a police scanner in the kitchen and Ford’s on Nick’s tail. Wanna have popcorn and spy on my daughter?”
Rodney grinned up at him and bounced on his toes. “I’m thinking about implanting Tiffany with a GPS chip.”
“I don’t think that’s legal,” John said, steering him through the doorway.
Rodney twisted around and jabbed a finger at him. “I can make one for Daisy, too.”
John rolled his lips in over his teeth to cover a grin, then shook his head and said, “We’ll talk.”
*
The house was quiet, both kids napping. The rare peace was unsettling, and left Rodney with too many thoughts.
In recent years, Jeannie and Rodney hadn’t been very close. The paths of their lives diverged drastically, and neither of them, as far as Rodney knew, had ever blamed each other for losing touch. So Rodney missed Jeannie, but it was an abstract grief. It made him nostalgic. It made him think of all the screaming fights they’d had over Jeannie essentially ruining her life, wasting her incredible, possibly even more brilliant than his brain and having babies and a husband and giving up.
Rodney would never ever, even now that Jeannie was gone, admit that he’d been wrong - family had never been the McKay’s strong suit - but he could understand her a little better now. It was just another legacy, albeit one that didn’t come with a Nobel Prize - and had the side effect of slowly eroding his fine motor skills. Rodney was banking on them taking care of him in his old age.
Rodney sat on the kitchen floor, back propped up against the refrigerator. It was uncomfortable, and Rodney’s ass was going numb and it was only a matter of time before there’d be shooting pain up his legs, but he couldn’t concentrate anywhere else - was having trouble concentrating at all; the silence was eerie.
Walter ignored Rodney’s tasty papers stacked up on the floor and dug at one of his pant-legs with frantic paws; he tugged on the material with his teeth, ears back. He bumped Rodney’s hand when he reached down to pet him, nipping his pinkie and pushing it away with his nose before going back to whatever the hell he was doing to the hem of Rodney’s pants.
“I was destined for greatness, you know,” Rodney told Walter.
Walter looked unimpressed.
And then Rodney heard the familiar thumps of George slowly making his way down the stairs, armed with his sneakers - Rodney could picture the colander on his head, blankies wrapped around his neck like a scarf - and for a second he thought about the calculations he needed to get done before the next day. But he just levered himself to his feet, groaning at the pop of his knees, and started on a late lunch.
George’s smile materialized around the doorjamb, along with his sticky fingers and smudged cheeks, and Dex had obviously let him play in the dirt again - Rodney was going to have to have a talk with him about baths; Rodney suspected Dex was feeding his kid giant lies about tubs and sea monsters, given the way George cried like all his skin was going to get eaten off whenever Rodney got him near water.
Rodney made a mental note to plan a trip to the beach and teach George all about the wonder of whales.
“What do you think, George, peanut butter and jelly?”
George said, “Okay,” and dropped down to his knees to play with Walter - and babbled on about a red dog he saw with Dex that had big ears and no tail, and Rodney was absolutely not getting George a dog; dogs and Rodney did not get along, they sensed his immense disdain and always tried to bite him - and Rodney’s heart didn’t swell or skip a beat or anything incredibly trite or stupid like that. Really.
Rodney didn’t believe in heaven or ghosts or the afterlife or reincarnation - he didn’t, but some days he really felt like he should, just so he could look forward to giving Jeannie several pieces of his precious, precious mind; what had she been thinking, doing this to him?
And some days he felt like he should, just so he could thank her.
“You are behaving oddly,” Radek said to Rodney, slapping Kavanagh’s hands away as the man made a grab for a donut. “No,” he snapped, as if talking to his wife’s yappy dog.
“I’m not behaving oddly,” Rodney protested. He bit into a jelly-filled donut and gave Kavanagh a smug, powdery grin.
“See,” Radek narrowed his eyes at him, “you are in far too good a mood. It is disconcerting.”
“Guess who’s back?” he asked brightly.
“Daniel Jackson.”
Rodney’s face fell into a scowl.
“What?” Radek said mock-innocently, eyes wide. “You told me to guess.”
“Yes, well, it was an easy deduction,” Rodney said, somewhat bitter, “since summer is rapidly coming to a close, and who does Nick think he’s kidding?” Nick was as wild as his mother, with a skewed sort of logic that’d continuously gotten him into trouble, and Rodney really hadn’t recognized him. Glasses, for god’s sake. Light brown hair, instead of his usual jet black. Was he trying his father’s persona on for size?
“Nicky is merely misguided, as his mother is a crazy woman.”
“His mother’s a klepto,” Rodney amended slightly. “Hot, though.”
“Yet this does not explain your cheerfulness,” Radek said, swinging the conversation neatly back around. “Since you mostly cannot stand Dr. Jackson.”
“Oh, fine,” Rodney snapped, but there wasn’t much bite to it. “I’m going out with Sheppard.”
Radek’s eyebrows climbed up his forehead. “Going out where?”
“To eat. Dinner. As in a date,” Rodney clarified, annoyed, because Radek, the Czech bastard, knew exactly what he’d meant.
A grin spread across Radek’s mouth. “Good.”
“Good?”
“Yes, good. You deserve some fun. My wife, she is ready to set you up, and I do not think you would like her taste in men,” he said wryly, pushing his glasses up his nose.
Rodney snorted. Radek was by no means a terrible catch, but Rodney was never, ever going to tell him that. It was bad enough he acknowledged his intelligence on an almost daily basis. “Of course,” he said, “this won’t be much of date, since I’ll have to be back by eight.”
Radek stared at him. “Why?”
“George’s bedtime.”
“Rodney,” Radek said patiently, “I am sure Ronon can handle putting George to bed this once.”
“Which isn’t the point.” Rodney glared at Kavanagh as the man slunk forward and grabbed a glazed donut, but graciously let him slide, even when he sent Rodney a petulant sneer. He was going to have to talk to Samantha at the Institute about getting another lackey, because Kavanagh was getting on his last nerve.
“Are we going to work at any time today?” Kavanagh asked haughtily.
Radek growled at him. “We are going to work. You are going to sit quietly in your corner until we need you to hold something still.” He turned to Rodney and added, “He is less useful than a trained monkey,” which sounded exactly like something Rodney himself would say, and it was only slightly creepy hearing it come from Radek.
Mostly, Rodney was just proud.
*
Rodney once spent a full year in Siberia with a passel of hippie environmentalists, building up an astronomical tolerance for vodka and bearded women, but that hell didn't even compare to Tiffany in a righteous snit. Or, you know, teething.
The books and magazines assured him that cold, water-filled teething rings did wonders, but those books and magazines could just bite Rodney's ass, because Tiffany hated them and the horses they rode in on. A wet washcloth - after three frantic calls to Carson - seemed to actually work, and she was happily sucking on the terrycloth, propped up in the corner of the couch, and Rodney was dead, numb, not quite passed out but lurching dangerously towards it, spread out across his living room floor.
He stared up blankly, raw eyes frozen wide. Something scratched and dug at his t-shirt, small teeth scraped his side as the material bunched and pulled, and somehow Walter had gotten out of the kitchen, but Rodney really didn't care.
Gray dawn was steadily stealing across the ceiling. He was fairly sure it was Thursday. A furry nose nudged his cheek, there was a terse yank on his hair, and he rolled his head to blink at Walter, all twitching whiskers and big bulging eyes and tiny sharp teeth. Past him, Rodney could see the old baby gate and the hole Walter'd made in the mesh; little pieces of plastic scattered on the rug. He'd had an industrious night. Too bad his pea-sized, curious brain had led him straight back to his jailor. Though Rodney honestly didn't have the energy to do anything about it.
He half-heartedly lifted a hand and Walter took off for the couch, legs kicking up behind him. Great.
There was a rustle-thump from the stairwell, and Rodney tipped his head back to see George slowly making his way down the steps, one hand clutching the railing, his other fisting the tied-together shoelaces of an old pair of Rodney’s sneakers. He’d taken to dragging them around the house like a security blanket, which was odd, but hey. Whatever made him happy.
Rodney mustered up a smile for the toddler, and George ran full tilt for him as soon as he hit the landing, clocking him in the head with the shoes and toppling against his side with a too-wide-awake laugh.
Rodney would’ve given his-well, not any of his limbs, actually, but maybe a box full of donuts or his favorite pen or something to be able to go back up to bed and sleep for at least another three hours. Instead, he hefted himself to his feet, let George turn on his cartoons, and stumbled into the kitchen to make breakfast.
*
John watched bemusedly, fists on his hips, as the youngest member of the East Wallingford police force wriggled his way under David Parrish’s front porch.
“I think it’s a-oh, shit.” Ford scrambled backwards so fast he landed sprawled on his ass, then crab-walked another yard before twisting around onto his knees, feet, and diving behind John.
“What the hell?” John had his sidearm out just in time to catch sight of the sloped head and telltale black and white markings of an abnormally - to John, at least, who’d never seen one outside of the TV - huge skunk, illuminated by the beam of Ford’s hastily dropped flashlight.
It ambled out, sniffed curiously in their direction, then went right back under the porch, plumed tail luckily still lowered and un-cocked.
“There’s your wild animal.” He grinned at Parrish. There was no way in hell he was gonna even attempt to remove that.
“Call in Dex,” Ford said, still hovering behind John.
“It’s a little early to call someone out for a skunk,” John said. The sky was still mostly dark, the moon a pale white outline. He tended to lose track of time on the nightshift, but he’d guess it was around five.
Ford shrugged. “He’s probably up anyway. McKay makes a lot of noise. Better to get ‘em while he’s sleepy, too.”
“Who, Dex or the skunk?”
Beside John, Parrish worried his fingers in the hem of his shirt. “Oh, I’d leave him there, you know, but Betsy gets into absolutely everything,” he fretted, and Betsy, a handsome, bluetick coonhound, pressed her nose up against the screen door and woofed balefully at them.
Half of John’s mouth quirked up. “All right,” he told Ford. “Call in Dex.” He was more than a little curious about the man, anyway. Rodney’s neighbor. Who, in addition to being hot, was also apparently dreamy.
He listened absently as Ford flipped open his cell and dialed Dex, and Parrish had wandered in and out of the house with a couple of hot mugs of coffee by the time a lifted pickup with monster wheels pulled into the drive, crunching over the gravel and grinding to a stop next to the police SUV.
Dex - large, dreadlocked and, wow, Daisy was so right about his hotness - slid the caged skunk into the bed of his truck just about twenty minutes later. The trick, apparently, was to offer a mound of tasty treats and be incredibly still, quiet and patient.
Parrish fidgeted nervously around a thank you, and John held out a hand.
Dex engulfed it with his own and growled, “Watch it with McKay,” completely out of nowhere, and John grimaced as Dex’s grip tightened, cracking his knuckles audibly before releasing him.
“Um.” John very carefully did not shake his throbbing fingers.
“This is off record, right?” Dex asked Ford.
John’s eyes shot wide. He wasn’t going to punch him, was he?
“Non-capture, skunk wandered off,” Ford said, smiling, then added for John, “Procedure is euthanasia and rabies testing for most wild animal captures.”
“Nothing wrong with him,” Dex said, disgruntled. Disgruntled seemed to be a default with him. He was kind of intimidating. John decided that he never ever wanted to get on his bad side - he was pretty sure it’d involve lots of pain and humiliation, with a high probability of tears.
Dex sent him a sharp grin before climbing inside the truck cab, slamming the door shut.
John scrounged up a smile and gave him a loose salute as he drove off.
*
Rodney couldn’t remember ever getting so wound up about a date. Granted, he had trouble remembering past dates in general, since lately everything was a blur of dirty diapers and strained peas and bedtime stories about puppies and that Spanish cartoon George was obsessed with.
Daisy was sprawled on her stomach on his couch, legs kicked up, head leaning on one hand, idly flipping through the TV channels with a rabbit-gnawed remote - most of the buttons were entirely unreadable.
Tiffany was in her bouncy chair, staring fixedly at her lamp, listening to the plink-plink muzak of comatose babies everywhere, and George was squeezed into the tight triangle of space between the side table and Rodney’s overstuffed recliner, playing with his plastic dinosaurs, a naked Malibu Barbie, and an avocado colored colander.
“You realize this is weird, right?” Daisy asked.
“Weird, what?” Rodney looked down at himself. “It’s the pants, isn’t it? I look like a banker.”
Daisy rolled her eyes. “I meant,” she said, “that I’m here, and you’re going out with my dad.”
Rodney paused. “Um. I didn’t think-I mean, I’m sure it’s-do you have a-” he flapped a hand, “-problem with this? Because if you do, you should’ve said something before, since not showing is tacky and I’m far too old to stand someone up anyway-”
“Doc,” Daisy said, “it’s fine. It’s just weird seeing you trying to impress my dad, who’s, like, the biggest slice of cheese on the planet.”
“Somehow, I doubt he’d appreciate you telling me that.”
“It’s kind of hard for him to hide it,” she said, a half-resigned, half-amused expression on her face.
“So,” Rodney shifted on his feet, smoothing hands over his shirt, “I don’t look like a banker?”
She scrunched up her nose and said, “You should just wear jeans.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You have inside information.” It wasn’t a question.
“Maybe.” She grinned. Then she shifted up and lounged against the corner of the couch, fingers toying with the lip of her water glass resting on the side table. “So. What do you know about Nick Jackson?”
“No comment.” It was odd, but Rodney felt strangely maternal around Daisy, like he was one step away from talking about his feelings or gossiping about boys, and if that ever actually happened, he was pretty sure he’d have to shoot himself.
“He’s cute.”
Rodney snorted. “His father’s a pouty-lipped, glorified librarian and his mother’s a manipulative harpy with a pretentious accent.”
“Still.” She sighed.
“There is every possibility he’ll grow up to be an archeologist,” Rodney warned her, wagging a finger. “Or a high-priced whore who sleeps his way into political mayhem.”
Daisy cocked her head. “Should you be talking like that around me?”
“Probably not,” Rodney admitted, although as long as Daisy didn’t repeat anything potentially damaging - which he didn’t think she would - he wasn’t going to bother curbing his tongue around her. He had to do that often enough with his students, since he’d found an overabundance of crying often led to painful parent-teacher conferences, and some parents were not only horrendously narrow-minded, but most times on a lower comprehension scale than their kids, making the conferences a complete waste of his time and incredibly, stab-your-brain dull.
“Awesome.” Daisy grinned lazily. “I’m still going out with Nick.”
“Hold up, wait.” Rodney raised a hand. “You’re going out with him? Does your father know this?” he asked.
She rolled her eyes. “Duh. Of course not.”
“And you’re not worried I’ll let him in on this little secret tonight?”
“Doc, if you two end up discussing my love-life on your date,” she shook her head, “it’ll just be sad.”
Rodney conceded the point. And then went to get changed.
*
Though John would deny it to his death, he was a little nervous. Until he realized Rodney was just as, if not more nervous than him, twisting his fingers in a paper napkin, eyes big and borderline panicky, and his cool came back in spades. He grinned loosely across the table at him.
“I’m trying to figure out,” Rodney said slowly, “how I rate a crummy pizza joint.”
John grinned wider. “You love this place,” he said. Daisy could occasionally be surprisingly helpful.
“Yes, yes,” Rodney said, nodding, finally relaxing a bit in his seat. “But.” He glanced around, expression still sort of affronted.
The interior of the place was a joke. Framed maps of Italy, crayoned drawings from the local kids of the famous boot, were crammed tight on the walls. The tables were checkerboard white and red, the spray of flowers dotting the center laughably fake. The open kitchen was loud - they tossed pies, and lost more than a few - and the floor was normally packed tight for dinner.
John thought it was great, and he especially loved the old Asteroids game in the corner, tucked between the two single stalled bathrooms. He jerked his head towards the group of teens gathered around it. “Bet we can get those kids off of that with five bucks,” he said.
Rodney looked like he really wanted to say something biting, but then got to his feet with a shrug. “Sure, why not, since apparently you’ve got the social acuity of a fourteen-year-old.”
“I’m pretty competitive, too,” John said brightly, following Rodney through the wind of overtaxed tables.
Rodney paused and turned to look at him archly. “Are you going to cry if I don’t let you win?”
“Maybe.” John sort of bounced on his heels, feeling playful. “I don’t like to imagine that sort of trauma, though.”
John could see a smile hidden at the downslope of Rodney’s mouth, shining in his eyes even as he grumbled, “Prepare to get your ass kicked, Sheppard.”
*
Because he was an excellent teacher, despite having zero tolerance for fools and morons, Rodney handed out his email on the first day of class, and made himself available to students after school hours for most of the entire semester. He encouraged an open dialogue, even if that dialogue was comprised mostly of him yelling, and they seemed to appreciate his candor. It was one of the reasons the administration had given him the extremes, remedial and advanced. He snapped the one group into shape without mercy and made the other work harder than they’d ever worked before.
Nick Jackson wasn’t in either of his sections. He was a decent student, but tended to skate by without really trying. Felger, Rodney’s grade partner, almost always spent half his lunch bemoaning the kid’s wasted potential.
Rodney really didn’t care.
“All right, spit it out, why are you here?” he said irritably after Nick slid inside his room, closing the door behind him.
Nick cleared his throat, fidgeting in front of Rodney’s desk. “So, you’re, uh, dating Mr. Sheppard, right?”
Rodney sharpened a glare on him. “And that is any of your business how?”
He shoved his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “I really like Daisy.”
Rodney stared at him blankly, waited a beat, then said, “Really, where are you going with this? Because as we speak, Jeremy Fitzhugh is having a spastic fit in the hall over the C I gave him on his horrendously ill-prepared paper on Euclidean dynamics.” He could see the student’s red face through the narrow pane of glass inset in the door.
“Mr. Sheppard, he.” Nick dipped his head, a move reminiscent of his father, but somehow he managed to make it look less affected and more sincere. “I think he’s gotten a bad impression of me.”
“I can’t see how,” Rodney said, widening his eyes in mock-wonder. Seriously, Nick was a pain in the ass, and dear god, he was using Jackson’s infamous pout. Jesus. “Fine, fine. I’ll try to,” he grimaced, “say something nice about you, but I can’t promise it’ll make any difference. Now get out of here and let Jeremy in before he hyperventilates himself into passing out.”
“Thanks, Dr. McKay,” Nick said brightly, and his smile was pretty much the only physical feature - other than his dark hair, of course, which Rodney still wasn’t sure why he’d gotten rid of - that he’d blatantly inherited from his mother. Try as he might, Rodney’d never been able to see any guile hidden in the way it lit up his entire face, and Vala had that same exact charm.
He grumbled, “Yes, of course,” and waved him off with a glower he, embarrassingly, actually had to force.
*
Rodney wasn’t sure he and John were actually dating. They met at Pico’s on Tuesdays and Fridays, and John held the highest score at Asteroids and Rodney pondered half-hearted plots to break in late at night and take the thing apart, hiding all the pieces, but he was secretly amused by John’s victory dance - Daisy was right; for all his cool, he could be appealingly dorky.
Most times they ended up making out in John’s truck. Occasionally, when Rodney slumped down exhausted in the booth with half-lidded eyes and barely contained yawns, they’d part ways at the door, and John would squeeze his arm, shackle his wrist and reel Rodney in for a quick kiss on the corner of his mouth.
With the onslaught of fall and school, Rodney’s hours were insane - he took the rugrats to the lab three evenings a week, let them play with the robot - and there had to be something very, very wrong with John because he a) took what little Rodney gave him without complaint, and b) never asked why Rodney had so little to give. Rodney was torn between relief at the casualness of their apparent relationship and being pissed off that John wasn’t more invested. Or hurt. He could’ve been a little hurt.
Rodney, of course, was getting dangerously attached. It had something to do with his complete lack of a social life outside of John, maybe, but mostly he was sure it was because John practically came alive under his hands, flushed and breathless with this fascinating thread of control, a sharpness in his dark eyes holding him back, since, seriously, there was only so much fooling around two thirty-somethings could do in the extended cab of a Ford truck.
So, basically, that was why Rodney finally gave in and asked Daisy if she could take over babysitting duties when Dex’s time was up, then he told John he was taking him on a proper adult date, and to wear a tie.
John didn’t wear a tie.
It was inconsequential, though, since Rodney’d been mainly joking about that part, and he tugged on the sleeves of his sport coat and worried the buttons on his shirt while John just smirked at him over the set of flickering candlesticks.
It felt weird having an entire kid-free evening spread before him. Rodney’s cell was heavy in his pocket, and he fought the urge to check the settings again, making sure the ring was loud enough to be heard over the din of the restaurant.
His fingers gripped the edge of the table, and he realized, belatedly, while John’s gaze idly scanned their surroundings, that before they’d always been doing something.
They’d played Asteroids and Miss PacMan or drew on the paper placemats - Rodney quizzing John and alternately lamenting and salivating over his completely lazy math skills; John sketching jet fighters and spaceships and race cars and dogs - and they’d never had to sit there with nothing but silence between them, relying on a conversation sally that neither one of them were particularly good at.
And then John flashed him a half-smile, leaned forward, whispered conspiratorially, “I’m pretty sure our waiter is a robot,” and suddenly everything was familiar again.
*
Cosmically, Rodney figured, someone really, really hated him, because his cell rang the second they stepped out of the restaurant.
“Doc,” Daisy said as soon as he answered, “I’m so sorry, but George is, like, hysterical, and I can’t calm him down.”
“What happened?” Rodney asked shortly, visions of bloody hands, cracked skulls, serial killers hiding in closets spinning through his mind. He could hear hiccupping sobs in the background, and he clutched his cell in a tight, white-knuckled grip.
“Everything okay?” John leaned over to murmur, and Rodney waved him off.
“I don’t know what’s wrong,” Daisy said. She sounded strung out and distressed.
“All right, fine, hold on and I’ll be right there.” Rodney thumbed off the cell and rubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry,” he said.
“Hey, no. It’s fine.” John slid his hands into his pockets and shrugged. “Come on, let’s get you home.”
“Right, right,” Rodney said, and he was quiet the whole ride, jaw tight, because this was George. George who’d lost his parents and he should have known this whole date was a bad idea. George had a schedule, and he’d broken it just because he’d wanted to get into John’s pants, and there was no doubt in Rodney’s mind that this was his fault. He should have been home hours ago.
He swung into his driveway and was out of the car before John had a chance to scrabble for his seatbelt, and when he burst through the front door, there was a blur of George, practically throwing himself at Rodney’s legs.
“Hey,” Rodney said, trying for his best soothing tone, which wasn’t really very soothing, but George seemed to calm just from the sound of his voice. Rodney picked him up, wrapping his arms around him, hugging him to his chest, and George hiccupped wetly against his neck, fingers in a tight grip on his shirt. “You’re okay.”
“He. He just started, and he wouldn’t stop and Ronon’s not home and I didn’t know what to-”
“Don’t be stupid,” Rodney cut her off, rolling his eyes. “I shouldn’t have left him so long, it’s fine. How’s Tiffany?”
“Tiff’s fine.” Daisy nodded, and it looked a little like she’d been crying, too, her dark eyes rimmed in red. “Sound asleep.”
“Everything good?”
Rodney turned, and John was standing in the still-open doorway, hands on his hips. “Yes, um. Everything’s under control.”
John grinned. He stepped inside and peeked around at George’s face, half mashed into Rodney’s shoulder. “Hey there, big guy,” he said, soft, and George sniffled and lifted his head up, face damp and snotty, still clutching Rodney in a somewhat desperate grip.
“Wanna say hi, G?” Daisy asked, smiling. She still looked a little strung out and upset, but the smile seemed genuine enough.
George ducked down again. He said, “Hi,” muffled against Rodney’s now also damp and snotty shirt.
“So, I’ll just, uh.” Rodney shifted awkwardly on his feet.
John shook his head, mouth still curved up slightly. “It’s fine, Rodney. C’mon, kid,” he wrapped an arm around Daisy’s shoulders, “let’s go home.”
*
John had no idea what he was doing with Rodney.
In the passenger seat, Daisy sniffed and rubbed her wrist under her nose and asked, “Are you serious?”
“Huh?”
“With the doc. Are you serious, Dad, because he’s got kids,” Daisy said.
Firstly, John did not need this kind of pressure. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Secondly, “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve got a kid, too.”
He could practically hear Daisy roll her eyes. “But I’m, like, full grown.”
John’s eye started twitching, and his brain hurt. “You are not full grown,” he said. Daisy would be full grown over his dead and rotting body. Sometimes he had flashes of her future wedding and John was always sobbing quietly in a corner.
Daisy sighed. “Sorry you couldn’t finish your date,” she said, slumping a little into his side.
It wasn’t that late, but John knew a crying baby could take a lot out of you. “Not your fault.” He nudged her with his elbow. “Wanna go get ice cream?”
She hooked her arm through his. “Ice cream would rock.”
*
John was so busy with work and planning Daisy’s birthday party and dodging weirdly frequent calls from Elizabeth that he didn’t notice Rodney was avoiding him for nearly a week.
It was an easy out, and John surprised himself a little by not wanting to take it.
“You’re avoiding me,” John said, slipping into the seat across from Rodney.
“I am not,” Rodney said without looking up. He had a notebook spread open, completely covered in near-indecipherable scratches, but John spotted a folded up copy of the Daily Times - Rodney had this love-hate relationship with the crossword puzzles. He complained about them being ridiculously simple, but he never missed completing one.
John grinned. “Are, too.”
Rodney gave him a pissy look, mouth tight and annoyed.
John wanted to kiss him until the lines bracketing it relaxed, and he freaked out inside for a split-second before resolutely shaking it off. He liked Rodney. Daisy liked Rodney. Rodney avoiding him had effectively killed whatever reserve John had felt before. Relationships were tough, and John would rather stab himself in the thigh than have some sort of conversation with Rodney about feelings, but he wasn’t going to let Rodney cut him off. Rodney had two kids, but Daisy had been worth it, worth everything, so he couldn’t think of any reason why this would be any different.
John was thinking about this as something permanent, and, okay, so maybe a cold sweat broke out all over his whole body, and maybe he wasn’t ready for anything heavy-duty now, hell, they hadn’t even slept together yet, but he also couldn’t imagine his life without Rodney. So it was really just a long stretch of someday, eventually, and he couldn’t help but look forward to it.
“I’m not avoiding you,” Rodney said, stubborn tilt to his chin.
John slumped down in the vinyl booth, grin widening. “Sure. So you’ll be at Daisy’s party.”
“Of course,” Rodney said, and John kind of loved him for the sudden bewildered look on his face, like it hadn’t even occurred to Rodney that avoiding John - which he so had been doing - would involve skipping out on Daisy’s birthday. “The Death Machine might even been finished.”
John winced. “I wish you wouldn’t call it that.”
Rodney waved a hand. “Don’t worry, it’ll be perfectly safe.” He frowned. “I’d advise stocking up on road flares, though, and a tire pump kit and-I’ve got a list, I’ll take her to AutoZone tomorrow. I’m pretty sure I have an extra reflective jacket.”
“Rodney-”
“I’ve already given her the Other Drivers Are Morons speech,” Rodney said, gripping his coffee cup between tight fingers. “Do you think we can convince her to wear a helmet?”
John arched an eyebrow.
“What?” Rodney asked, wide-eyed.
John shook his head. “Nothing.”
*
John heard the front screen door creak open and shut, the subsequent stomps up the stairs, and he stared up at the ceiling, wincing as a bedroom door slammed. Okay. He checked the clock over the stove. It was barely seven, and Daisy should’ve still been over at Rodney’s, and while temper tantrums weren’t exactly a strange occurrence for her, she hadn’t been in a mood since starting work on the car.
Sighing, John got up from the counter and made his way upstairs.
He knocked softly on her door. “Daize?”
“Go away.”
John groaned. He really, really hated it when she got like this. “Not gonna happen,” he said.
“Go. Away,” Daisy said again, voice louder, like she was standing directly on the other side of the door, talking into the wood.
“See, that’s not a very convincing argument. You should’ve gone for ‘I’m okay,’ and then low-balled me with some girl problems.” John heard her sigh, but the door remained firmly closed. He turned and slid down to sit on the floor, then rapped the thin wood over his shoulder with his knuckles.
She knocked back, right by his head.
Daisy was his baby girl, and he hated to see her hurting. He moved, pressed his ear up against the door. “What happened?” he asked.
“Nothing. I’m.” She paused, John waited. The best thing to do with her, with him, with any Sheppard, really, was to wait. “Mom called me. She’s not coming.”
John cursed under his breath. Daisy put up a strong front, John knew that. It didn’t matter that Daisy had told her not to come; parents were supposed to do the exact opposite of what their kids wanted them to do. John was pretty sure that was in a rule book somewhere.
Sorry wasn’t going to cut it, and like hell was John going to make any excuses for Elizabeth. Right now, she’d disappointed the most important person in John’s life.
“Rampant goat disease?” John said.
There was a choked off, watery laugh, and then the doorknob turned, and John shifted his weight just in time to avoid falling backwards into Daisy’s room.
“Hey,” he said, and Daisy, curled up on her knees, flung herself into John’s arms, and John held on tight and let her pretend she wasn’t crying.
*
Rodney would deny it until he died, but he maybe cried a little the morning George woke up and said, “Uncle Rodney.” It was barely crying. A slight welling of tears around his eyes, his cheeks weren’t even wet.
And then George wouldn’t stop saying ‘Uncle Rodney,’ wouldn’t stop talking, and Rodney realized George had come into his McKay heritage. He felt more sympathy for his parents than he ever had before. George had a running commentary for everything, and Rodney only understood half of what was coming out of his mouth, but his nephew was clearly a genius.
“He said thermonuclear the other day. Or maybe it was pancakes, but either way, genius,” Rodney said smugly.
Daisy rolled her eyes. “He calls Walter ‘doggy.’”
“You’ve misunderstood him,” Rodney said. Either that, or George was merely pointing out how dog-like Walter could be, because that kind of sound reasoning was not beyond a toddler McKay.
“He eats bugs.”
Rodney ignored her and blew a raspberry on Tiffany’s stomach before snapping up her onesy.
“He wears a colander on his head and runs into walls,” Daisy said.
Rodney huffed irritably, hefting Tiffany into his arms. She fisted a hand in his shirt collar and gurgled, and Rodney resigned himself to having drool all over him for the rest of the day. “Do you want your birthday present or not?”
Daisy perked up. “Yes, please.”
“It’s, uh.” Rodney fidgeted, suddenly nervous. “It’s not much.”
“Whatever, Doc. You already gave me a car,” she said.
“I didn’t give it to you. Your dad’ll be paying out the ass for that thing for years to come.” Rodney would not guarantee that it wouldn’t fall apart the first time Daisy drove it. It ate money faster than it ate gas.
Rodney nudged his closet door open wider with his foot and pointed towards a battered box. “That first.”
Daisy dropped to her knees and slid it out, tugging open the flaps. It really wasn’t much. He’d found a bunch of Jeannie’s old albums - The Clash, Joy Division, Michael Jackson, Rush, Yes, David Bowie, The Velvet Underground.
“They were my sister’s,” he said awkwardly when Daisy didn’t say anything at all, just made a noise in the back of her throat and started flipping through the records. “Figured maybe you’d like the same weird stuff.”
“Pink Floyd,” Daisy finally said, and Rodney couldn’t identify the strange tone of her voice. “The Ramones. Sex Pistols?”
Rodney grimaced. “Please tell me you’re not completely oblivious to punk rock. You’ll make me feel even older than I actually am.”
Daisy tipped her head back and looked up at him with huge, stunned eyes. “This is awesome.”
“Oh. Well.” Rodney felt his face heat. “If you dig deeper in the closet there’s a record player, too.”
Jumping to her feet, Daisy slung her arms around both Tiffany and Rodney, and Rodney held himself stiffly and blushed even more and huffed and said, “Yes, yes, you’re welcome, now get this junk out of here so George can make yet another brilliant but unnecessary fort.” George had been slowing and steadily taking over every nook and cranny of Rodney’s house with blankets and pillows and boxes of fruit roll-ups, but Rodney honestly didn’t care.
“You’re the best, Doc,” Daisy said. “Thank you.”
*
Daisy’s party was small, and mostly consisted of adults and Nicky Jackson. This didn’t actually make Rodney feel any more comfortable. He let George follow Dex around and kept Tiffany to himself, hoping her general adorableness would distract everyone from seeing the panic Rodney was sure was showing in his eyes. He’d never been very good at pretending everything was fine.
John looked good. John always looked good, it was one of the reasons Rodney was having trouble staying away from him. The other reasons had to do with his donkey laugh and his skinny legs and his addiction to ice cream and really bad sci-fi movies.
He had to remind himself constantly that George and Tiffany needed him.
John flopped down on the couch beside him and said, “Hey, McKay,” and Rodney leaned into him a little before jerking back. John frowned. “Okay.”
“No, I. This isn’t working,” Rodney said, and he had not meant to say that, at least not right then. He hugged Tiffany’s back up against his chest, and she squirmed a little in protest.
“Okay,” John said again, drawing the word out. “So you’re dumping me at my daughter’s birthday dinner?”
“Not, um.” Dumping sounded so harsh. And it also made Rodney’s mouth dry up, and he felt nauseous and a little dizzy and he wanted desperately to grab John’s hand and never let go. “Not really?”
John pursed his lips. His eyes were dark, darker than usual, and Rodney focused on the crows-feet, the lived-in skin, and thought maybe they were too old for this shit.
Rodney shook his head. “Never mind.”
“You don’t-”
“I’m freaking out. I mean, George was freaking out, and I’m not very good at this.” He waved his hand around. “Any of this. You, me.” He meant more than that - that he had no idea what he was doing with George or Tiffany or Walter or anyone - and with the way John’s face softened, he thought maybe John got that.
“You’re good, Rodney,” John said. “I’m not headed anywhere I don’t want to go.”
*
John was a dad, first and foremost. He’d done more than watch Daisy get this far, he’d raised her. She was her own person, yeah, but John helped shape her; would continue to help shape her for the rest of his life.
Rodney was a dad - thrust even more unexpectedly into the role than most, along with more problems. But he was definitely a dad, and John got that George and Tiffany were going to be first for Rodney in all things. He understood, and he was patient, and John would do anything he could to help.
If that meant backing down, it meant backing down. If that meant playing Candy Land with a talkative three-year-old while Rodney snored like a chainsaw on his living room couch, he’d totally take it. George lasted a half hour before tanking out himself.
Daisy yawned around a Blow Pop and shifted Tiffany higher on her lap. “Best party ever,” she said. She leaned her head against the back of John’s shoulder. “Thanks for inviting Nick.”
“And for the car,” John said, packing up the board game. George was sprawled out on his back, fingers curled tight around the green game piece.
“And for the car,” she obediently echoed. “And for the clothes and the skateboard and the cake. Did I show you what Doc McKay gave me?”
John nodded, then shifted so he could settle back against the couch, curling an arm around Daisy’s shoulders.
“Think we can find, like, a music store that sells records?” she asked.
“We could try,” he said. He pressed a kiss to her temple. “Good birthday?”
“Yeah,” she said, soft.
*
“There is something wrong with you,” Radek said. “I do not like it.”
Rodney harrumphed. “You don’t have kids.”
Radek pushed his glasses up his nose and glared at him. “I have a spoiled lap dog and an anxiety-ridden robot who has now taken to screaming at closed doors. I do not need children.”
“I mean,” Rodney said, “you won’t be useful in helping me solve my current problem.” On the phone last night, Carson had told him that kids were resilient, that he hadn’t been neglecting them, that they’re doing better than fine, couldn’t he see that? But Carson had also thought George had needed therapy, and when it comes right down to it, Carson’s just a voodoo practitioner from the boonies of Scotland, so what would he really know?
Kids cried, Carson had said. Sometimes for no reason at all, or for some reason you couldn’t see, and you couldn’t keep them happy twenty four hours out of the day, but Rodney was damn well going to try.
Radek frowned at him. “You are going to mess up things with John, yes? And then you are going to be miserable, and you are going to make me miserable, which in turn will make Kavanagh miserable, which I am not against on principal, but there will be more yelling than I would like, and then we will get nothing done here for weeks.” He frowned harder, and poked Rodney in the chest with a finger. “You will think about this carefully, Rodney, or I may be forced to involve Cadman.”
Rodney gaped at him. “You wouldn’t.”
“I would,” Radek said solemnly.
Rodney stared Radek down. Radek didn’t even flinch, though, and Rodney would do anything to keep Cadman from meddling - even more than usual - in his life. She was a minion of the devil who made possibly the best macaroni and cheese Rodney had ever tasted. She knew how to get Rodney to do things he didn’t want to do. It was baffling, considering Cadman was a trigger-happy hick townie. It might be the blonde hair.
“You,” Rodney said. “You’ll regret this.” Radek would regret this in the form of enforced bonding with Kavanagh over the new, utterly wrong, wrong, wrong calculations sent down from the institute.
Radek gave him a knowing, sly grin and said, “Not as much as you would have.”
*
Daisy rolled onto her back on the bed and held Tiffany above her. Tiffany giggled and waved her hands towards her, little hands clenched into fists. “You’re being stupid,” she said.
Rodney said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that,” and continued folding tiny little socks and pants and shirts and bibs and thought about how big Tiffany was getting, and how George needed new shoes.
“My dad likes you. He thinks you’re awesome,” Daisy said. She settled Tiffany down on her chest and looked over at him. “I think you’re awesome, and my opinion pretty much counts for everything.”
Rodney had never been called awesome before. He knew, of course, that he was amazing and a genius and more important than a whopping four-fifths of the entire population of earth, but it was different to hear something like that out-loud. He thought he should probably feel vindicated, but really he just felt, uh, loved. His face was hot, and there was a lump in his throat, and he chalked it all up to sleep-deprivation - Tiffany had kept him up half the night before with a slight fever and a cranky mouth.
“Okay,” he said, and Daisy beamed at him, and Rodney didn’t want to get his hopes up or anything, but everything seemed a little lighter than it had in weeks.
*
“I don’t like you,” John said, hands on his hips.
“Understood, sir,” Nick said, but he was smiling, the punk.
John really did not like Nick Jackson. Nick Jackson came off perfect in his pressed khakis and powder blue polo and something about him grated the hell out of John. And he hated that he was taking out Daisy. John would follow them in his own car if Daisy hadn’t made him promise he wouldn’t. Luckily, she hadn’t said anything about Ford.
“Daddy,” Daisy said, practically jumping down the stairs, “quit harassing Nicky, geez.”
John tugged on her pony-tail as she skipped past. “Ten o’clock.”
“Midnight,” Daisy countered.
“Ten thirty.”
“Eleven.”
John raised his eyebrows. He thought for sure it’d take longer to get there. “Deal,” he said, and they shook on it, because sometimes Daisy was as much of a dork as him.
John quickly assessed her outfit, deemed it okay - it covered all her important parts, at least, he’d never understand all the safety pins - and then grinned what he hoped was an appropriately threatening grin at Nick before saying, “You kids have fun.”
He felt gratified seeing Nick’s eyes widen just the tiniest bit.
He watched them leave, watched Nick back his shiny black BMW out of John’s driveway - John really, really, really didn’t like that boy - and then he closed the front door and slumped back against it and ignored the annoying prickling of his eyes, because John Sheppard did not cry, especially not about his daughter going out on her first date - and if it wasn’t her first, John didn’t want to know about it.
John still hadn’t gotten himself completely together when his doorbell rang ten minutes later.
Rodney was there, shifting restlessly on the balls of his feet and refusing to look at him.
“Hey,” John said. He curled a hand around his doorjamb and tried not to think about how Rodney looked - like this was one of the hardest things he’d ever had to do. Something tightened in John’s chest.
“I want you to realize what you’d be getting into,” Rodney said, cheeks red, staring at John’s front stoop.
“All right,” John said, slow.
“You’ve already done this once, and sometimes I have no idea what I’m doing, and I’m not going to force you into, into,” he waved a hand, “this with me, but you need to know that-that it’s all or nothing. All three of us, or none of us.”
And that. That was kind of easy to decide. John almost smiled, and he rubbed a shaky hand across his forehead. “Rodney,” John said, and waited until Rodney looked up at him, mouth tight, eyes wary. “I get it, Rodney. I told you before.” He’d figured Rodney already knew this, but John was crap at talking about feelings with anybody except Daisy, and even then they mostly ate ice cream and talked with their eyebrows. John shrugged. “I’m always going to be a dad, too.”
Rodney’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “Um.”
John could tell Rodney he didn’t want to do it again, all the hard parts between then and now, the sicknesses, injuries, tears, joys, hugs - he could, but it would probably be a lie. Fatherhood was the hardest adventure he’d ever embarked on, and he kind of loved everything about it. Even letting go.
“Come on,” John said, curling a hand over Rodney’s arm and tugging him further inside. “I’ve got a police scanner in the kitchen and Ford’s on Nick’s tail. Wanna have popcorn and spy on my daughter?”
Rodney grinned up at him and bounced on his toes. “I’m thinking about implanting Tiffany with a GPS chip.”
“I don’t think that’s legal,” John said, steering him through the doorway.
Rodney twisted around and jabbed a finger at him. “I can make one for Daisy, too.”
John rolled his lips in over his teeth to cover a grin, then shook his head and said, “We’ll talk.”
*
The house was quiet, both kids napping. The rare peace was unsettling, and left Rodney with too many thoughts.
In recent years, Jeannie and Rodney hadn’t been very close. The paths of their lives diverged drastically, and neither of them, as far as Rodney knew, had ever blamed each other for losing touch. So Rodney missed Jeannie, but it was an abstract grief. It made him nostalgic. It made him think of all the screaming fights they’d had over Jeannie essentially ruining her life, wasting her incredible, possibly even more brilliant than his brain and having babies and a husband and giving up.
Rodney would never ever, even now that Jeannie was gone, admit that he’d been wrong - family had never been the McKay’s strong suit - but he could understand her a little better now. It was just another legacy, albeit one that didn’t come with a Nobel Prize - and had the side effect of slowly eroding his fine motor skills. Rodney was banking on them taking care of him in his old age.
Rodney sat on the kitchen floor, back propped up against the refrigerator. It was uncomfortable, and Rodney’s ass was going numb and it was only a matter of time before there’d be shooting pain up his legs, but he couldn’t concentrate anywhere else - was having trouble concentrating at all; the silence was eerie.
Walter ignored Rodney’s tasty papers stacked up on the floor and dug at one of his pant-legs with frantic paws; he tugged on the material with his teeth, ears back. He bumped Rodney’s hand when he reached down to pet him, nipping his pinkie and pushing it away with his nose before going back to whatever the hell he was doing to the hem of Rodney’s pants.
“I was destined for greatness, you know,” Rodney told Walter.
Walter looked unimpressed.
And then Rodney heard the familiar thumps of George slowly making his way down the stairs, armed with his sneakers - Rodney could picture the colander on his head, blankies wrapped around his neck like a scarf - and for a second he thought about the calculations he needed to get done before the next day. But he just levered himself to his feet, groaning at the pop of his knees, and started on a late lunch.
George’s smile materialized around the doorjamb, along with his sticky fingers and smudged cheeks, and Dex had obviously let him play in the dirt again - Rodney was going to have to have a talk with him about baths; Rodney suspected Dex was feeding his kid giant lies about tubs and sea monsters, given the way George cried like all his skin was going to get eaten off whenever Rodney got him near water.
Rodney made a mental note to plan a trip to the beach and teach George all about the wonder of whales.
“What do you think, George, peanut butter and jelly?”
George said, “Okay,” and dropped down to his knees to play with Walter - and babbled on about a red dog he saw with Dex that had big ears and no tail, and Rodney was absolutely not getting George a dog; dogs and Rodney did not get along, they sensed his immense disdain and always tried to bite him - and Rodney’s heart didn’t swell or skip a beat or anything incredibly trite or stupid like that. Really.
Rodney didn’t believe in heaven or ghosts or the afterlife or reincarnation - he didn’t, but some days he really felt like he should, just so he could look forward to giving Jeannie several pieces of his precious, precious mind; what had she been thinking, doing this to him?
And some days he felt like he should, just so he could thank her.