Roo'verse FIC: Compromises (3/3)
Part 2
NOW
Cam woke up with a face full of dreadlocks. It was a fairly regular occurrence in the Mitchell-Dex-Keller household, save for when Ronon was on a mission or one of the rare occasions in which Jennifer consented to sleeping in the middle, usually after some kind of crisis made her husbands feel overprotective of her, though those were happening less and less these days.
Cam blinked awake, squeezing Ronon around the waist to wake him up so he could get out of bed. When they first started sleeping together, Cam had tried to sneak out of bed in order to let Ronon sleep, but that usually ended in Ronon swinging his legs out to knock Cam down and restrain him before he even opened his eyes. Turned out only a gentle squeeze and a kiss would wake Ronon non-violently.
Ronon turned around and smiled at Cam, kissing him briefly before vaulting out of bed and heading for the closet to pull on his running clothes. After years of running in leather pants and boots, Jennifer had finally convinced Ronon to wear synthetic running gear and those annoying five-toe shoes that were so popular. Today it was black compression pants and a tight long-sleeved blue top that made Cam’s hands itch to pull it off. It didn’t help that Ronon never wore any underwear and only consented to wear a pair of briefs in bed because otherwise they rarely made it out for their morning run due to distraction. Cam put on basketball shorts and an old USAF t-shirt, feeling a bit sloppy compared to his husband, but it didn’t stop Ronon from goosing him as they made their way out the door.
Cam had been getting faster (and spending his days more tired) these past two months that John had been too big to run with them. Usually Ronon would get bored and leave the old men to run at their own pace, but without John Cam had been forcing himself to keep up.
“So what time did you get back?” Cam asked. He and Jennifer had finally given up on waiting for Ronon and had quick, playful sex on his side of the bed.
“Maybe four hours ago,” Ronon admitted. He didn’t even have the courtesy to look tired. “This group sucks.”
“Do they suck or did you make the course too hard again?” Cam asked.
“On Sateda--”
“On Sateda you learned how to fight and track early because the Wraith might come at any time. You have to lower your expectations for the guys that come over from Earth. Besides, we have completely different flora and fauna on our planet. They don’t automatically know that weaver beatles repair their nets with blue thread when disturbed or that you can use sand thistle leaves as a stimulant and sense enhancer and all the little things you take for granted.”
“Already made it easier,” Ronon grumbled, but Cam could tell by his tone that Ronon had taken his advice to heart. Cam never would have pictured himself with someone who was so taciturn when Cam himself was as socially gregarious at it got. But spending time with Ronon had taught Cam to appreciate silence in a way he hadn’t previously. Ronon didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to. After long days running meetings and putting out fires, Cam was glad to come back home and curl up with Ronon in the hammock on their balcony or take a twilight swim with him within the artificial breakwater between the northwest and north piers.
“We missed you.”
Ronon only grunted in acknowledgment. Even after three years together Ronon wasn’t used to the effusive way Cam and Jennifer expressed affection. Sometimes Cam found Ronon’s limited verbalization of his feelings uncomfortable. He knew that Ronon loved him and Ronon said the words when it mattered, but it still left Cam feeling flat footed and ridiculous the times when he wanted to heap Ronon with affection and all Ronon did was grunt.
“You’ve been spending a lot of time with McKay,” Ronon said. The ‘that’s why you’ve missed me’ was implied.
“It’s like you and Jenn are reading from the same playbook. Did you guys discuss this without me?” Jennifer was much more frustrated by Ronon’s lack of communication skills than Cam. Even though Cam didn’t doubt that Jennifer loved Ronon, he wasn’t sure whether she would have married him if she hadn’t married Cam too.
“Not really. But she keeps saying, ‘Cam’s out with Rodney and Dane again.’”
“Ah. We discussed it last night. The two of you have nothing to worry about. I’m just helping Rodney out while John is out of commission.”
“I wasn’t worried,” Ronon replied, picking up the pace a little bit to signal that he was done talking.
After they’d passed through Skyway 12B, Cam slowed back down to talking pace. “I haven’t wanted to seem as though I’m keeping track, but I think Jennifer is ovulating soon. You might want to give the trainees easy courses so you can be back home at a reasonable time.”
“I thought we weren’t in a rush.”
Cam winced. Luckily he was a few paces behind Ronon so his husband ran on, oblivious. The truth was that Ronon and Jennifer weren’t in a rush - they had both just hit thirty whereas Cam was edging close to fifty. For the most part the age difference didn’t bother them. Cam was athletic enough to keep up in the bedroom and both Jennifer and Ronon weren’t engaged enough in Earth culture to make the age gap obvious in terms of interests and shared references (Jennifer because she had been a child prodigy who spent all her time studying, and Ronon because he wasn’t from Earth). Cam wasn’t even much far ahead of them professionally. Jennifer had recently been promoted to Chief Surgeon (over her own protest to Carson), and Ronon both taught survival and tracking classes and was the leader of the offworld extraction team.
The only real reminder of the age difference was the fact that Cam already had a son - two sons, really, because like most pouchmates, Dane and Max were a package deal. Ronon was Dane’s godfather already so he’d fallen right into the stepdad role. Jennifer still wasn’t entirely comfortable - she worried about overstepping whenever she needed to discipline the boys and was wary of being left alone with them, which in turn made them uncomfortable around her. Even though she very much wanted to start a family, she was more inclined to drag it out over nerves that she wouldn’t be a good mother.
Cam was trying to be sensitive to Jennifer’s fears, but he wasn’t getting any younger. Cam didn’t have to worry about his biology, since they planned for Ronon and Jennifer to be the biological parents of the kid, but he hoped to be around long enough to see the baby grow up. Even if they conceived right away, he’d be almost seventy when their kid graduated high school. If they didn’t conceive soon, the baby might not even know its grandparents the way Dane and Max had never met John’s parents.
Then there was the other goal of wanting the new baby to be close enough in age to Max and Dane so that they would still have memories of being children together. But who was he kidding? Cam’s real motivator was the fact that John and Rodney were having another baby and their worry about being too old had transferred over to Cam. It wasn’t uncommon for carriers to remain fertile into their fifties and John had the advantage of being de-aged by a Wraith who overshot his actual age by around five years, so he wasn’t going to kick the bucket anytime soon, but Rodney constantly worried with nail-biting intensity. And because he didn’t want to alarm John, he mostly worried all over Cam.
“We’re not in a rush,” Cam said. “But wouldn’t you rather have it happen sooner than later?”
Ronon shrugged. They ran a few more paces before his husband stopped altogether and turned to Cam. “You weren’t honest with us. You want this to happen right away.”
Cam hunched in on himself sheepishly. “Maybe I do.”
Ronon thought for a second and then nodded, pulling Cam in for a brief kiss. “Then we’ll try harder.” Ronon never doubted. He believed everything he said with absolute conviction, and the power of his belief seemed to make the impossible possible. Ronon had been transformed by his time as a runner. It had undoubtedly stunted his social skills in many ways, but it had also stripped away many of the pretenses that lubricated the social wheels. Ronon meant what he said and said what he meant and Cam loved him for it.
“You’re too good to me, darlin’.” He grabbed Ronon by his pesky dreadlocks and guided them both against the wall of the abandoned corridor where they ran. Before he knew it, Ronon was scooping him up and pressing him against the wall. Cam still couldn’t believe that he’d married a man big and strong enough to do that. After kissing and rubbing up against each other until they both felt raw and teetering on the edge, Ronon slammed Cam down onto the ground and engaged in his new favorite sport: competitive cock-sucking.
Cam won as usual - it was one of the only sports he could best Ronon at.
As they caught their breath Cam reflected on how damned lucky he was to have this. Cam believed that he and Jennifer ultimately would have found each other, but getting Ronon as well was a coup. Ronon had had his eye on Jennifer before Cam had joined the expedition, but he was still young and recovering both from the death of his previous fiance and from his seven years on the run. He took their courtship so slowly that Jennifer had no idea she was being courted until Cam joined the picture and Ronon was forced to be more obvious.
Jennifer was a pleb, but thanks to her genius she had attended several schools in which most of the students were nobles, so the idea of a triumvirate marriage was not so far fetched. Even though she had always had the option at the back of her mind she seemed to have enjoyed watching both Cam and Ronon bend over backwards to try to win her over. Cam even suspected that she might have enjoyed driving a wedge between them for a while. It was practically the only fight that Cam and Ronon had since they met, not counting the grudge that Ronon still held against Cam for betting against Ronon when he and Teal’c sparred for the first time.
One could argue that Cam and Ronon and Jennifer’s relationship really started when Ronon betrayed Jennifer’s confidence to send Cam a message about John’s gestation. It was a watershed moment for all three of them: Jennifer because of the way the consequences shaped her, Ronon because he had finally felt comfortable taking a moral stance of his own instead of looking to John for confirmation that he was doing the right thing, and Cam because he became a donor because of it.
On his first visit to Atlantis, Cam had brought Ronon some homemade snickerdoodles and a book on American military history in thanks. Ronon started emailing Cam questions about the book not long afterwards, even though he was in a city full of military guys who could have answered his questions. Once Cam arrived on Atlantis while he and John were still fighting, Ronon had been one of the few people who didn’t automatically take John’s side. And he was the one to force John and Cam to finally talk to each other and settle their differences after the alien time capsule kept John, Rodney and Cam busy by making them think that Dane and Max had been taken hostage by Kolya.
Cam had noticed that Ronon was an attractive man the first time they met, and Ronon was one of Cam’s only friends when he moved to the city to replace John as military commander. A few months after arriving, Cam had been considering asking Ronon on a date until a briefing with the anthropologists explained that most Pegasus cultures saw same-gendered relationships as taboo, most likely because they were non-reproductive in a galaxy that desperately need population growth. Ironically, Jennifer had been the one Cam had asked about Ronon’s sexuality (after getting a stuttered ‘that’s not the kind of thing we talk about’ from Rodney).
According to Ronon, he and Jennifer had almost shared a kiss during the accidental quarantine that left a terrified Teyla stranded to face John going into labor (something they all still teased her about). But Ronon and Cam had kissed first, after a disastrous mission in which Cam, Jennifer, and Ronon had gone to assist a world that suffered from constant earthquakes. They had ended up trapped in an underground bunker on the verge of collapse and Cam had ended up breaking his leg in an attempt to reach the surface. When Ronon had come to help him back to his quarters, Cam’s exhausted, drug-addled brain had thought it would be a good idea to kiss the object of his affections even though he knew that Ronon wasn’t interested in men. Ronon had pushed him away gently but had taken it all in stride. They didn’t talk about that aborted first kiss for years, not even when they first got together.
“What are you thinking?” Ronon murmured, sitting up against the wall and pulling Cam back to rest between his legs.
Cam smiled. “Just remembering our first kiss and how you came to be this insatiable, expert cocksucker.”
Ronon shrugged. “I changed. I liked you before Jennifer asked me to try it with the two of you, but we didn’t do that on Sateda. It took me a long time just to figure out how John had a baby out of his butt. I didn’t know how to have sex with a man. On Sateda we had a word for men who were closer than friends: battle brothers. I thought maybe John was my battle brother before I met you, because I believed in him more than I’d ever believed in anyone as a leader. But it’s not about loyalty or about battle. It’s like being in love without having sex. I had that with you even before Jennifer asked me.”
Ronon wasn’t usually all that romantic towards Cam; even towards Jennifer his romantic side normally expressed itself through overprotectiveness and the presentation of incredibly strange gifts based on some mysterious Satedan courtship calendar that Cam and Jennifer still couldn’t figure out. Cam smiled, turning around to kiss Ronon. To Cam, Ronon openly discussing his feelings was the greatest gift.
Jennifer had told Cam, of course, about how she got Ronon to agree to their arrangement. She had envisioned that she would propose a solution that involved the three of them on the disastrous mission in which they encountered the other runner. Then they both proved to her that they weren’t ready for a relationship when Daniel and Rodney activated the Atero device - Cam because of how clear it was that he still had feelings for John after he broke his back and Ronon because of the reckless way he acted while fighting to retake the Daedalus from Todd.
Later, Jennifer had her body taken over by a thief who tried to seduce Ronon in order to escape the city. After a rescue mission to retrieve the thief’s body and switch them back, Ronon had admitted to Jennifer that the thief had briefly gotten the upper hand by kissing him. Jennifer had felt relieved to get the opening that she wanted to ask Ronon into a relationship, but Ronon followed his revelation with the statement that he had once thought there could be something between them but he thought it was clear that they both wanted someone else and in the end it would be the best person who would win that battle. All Jennifer had to do at that point was ask Ronon why all three of them couldn’t have everything they wanted.
It still took another year for Cam to be ready to be in a relationship with them, though Ronon and Jennifer didn’t exactly wait to start their end of things. Jennifer always joked about how hard they’d tried and Cam just laughed and admitted that he wouldn’t have had much self control either.
“What about you?” Ronon asked. “I remember what you wrote to me about Sheppard and McKay. You said sharing wasn’t for you. I didn’t really believe Jennifer when she said that we’d be able to convince you.”
It was a good question. Cam had been dead set against triumvirate marriages, but his previous objection barely crossed his mind when Jennifer and Ronon propositioned him. In the end, he supposed he’d never been truly against the concept, only against trying it with John and Rodney.
Objectively, Cam had plenty of reasons to be just as insecure, if not more, in his status with Jennifer and Ronon. With John and Rodney he would have married John first and have had a kid with him to cement their relationship. He’d known John longer and had slept with him first and he would be protected from a divorce by guild law. In his current marriage, his partners had been together first, were having a kid together, were much younger and probably more attractive than he was, and in reality didn’t really need him for anything vital. But they both loved him and somehow that made everything else meaningless.
“I guess I always saw triumvirate marriages as a compromise. Nobody would lose but nobody would win, either. With you, I felt like I was getting everything I ever wanted on a platter, and I’m pretty sure you felt the same.”
Ronon grinned. “I did feel the same. Jennifer too. And she helped me practice for when I’d have to have butt-sex with you.”
Cam grinned. “Have to have butt-sex with me? That’s not what I heard you scream three nights ago. Also, I’d like to see how you practiced.”
Ronon pulled Cam to his feet and immediately took off running. “Maybe later. If you hurry up, we can make it back in time to make a baby before work.”
“I don’t think it works like that!” Cam called out down the corridor, jogging in the other direction to the nearest transporter station. He’d try to race Ronon at top pace some other day. For now, he wasn’t too proud to admit that he’d rather not expend his energy pretending at youth when he could put it to better use back in their bedroom
***
THEN
Cam had been expecting a few months reprieve from John Sheppard and everything that came along with him - get back into rotation with SG1, kill some more of the Ori worshippers, maybe go on a few dates, see a lot of sports games, visit his family and basically do all the things he wouldn’t be able to do once he transferred to Atlantis. But even if John himself seemed to want to follow Cam’s wishes, everyone else did not.
The first message Cam recieved was from Darren the night he returned to the SGC. It said, “John woke up. He asked for you but didn’t panic again. Everything is fine,” with the charming postscript, “P.S. If you get a letter from our attorney, ignore it. My husband is too overprotective and too used to having the power to force things to go his way. A week of sleeping on the couch should fix that.”
Cam appreciated the message because at least it assuaged his guilt at leaving John the way he did.
Cam absolutely did not expect the next message to come from Rodney McKay a month later:
Mitchell:
I don’t like you and you don’t like me, but John is an asshole. That obviously hasn’t stopped either of us from falling in love with him, but it’s true. I wouldn’t expect Colonel Stoic McStoic pants to tell me what the two of you talked about, but I imagine some unforgivable things were said by both parties. As someone who has said a lot of things that other people seem to think are unforgivable, I can sympathize. On the other hand, John has a way of taking everything and interpreting it in the way that most allows himself to shut down. Meaning that he has, of course, decided to interpret what I’m sure was your offer to come at a moment’s notice if anything happened with the baby as an order not to contact you unless something happens with the baby.
Also, nice way to leave the stressed-out father of your child after he just had a panic attack about you leaving, jackass. But, as my pain-in-the-ass sister has pointed out to me, you also had to look out for yourself and you did make sure that I would be there to take care of John before you left. And after what he did to you, I’m not sure he had earned the right for you to stay.
Take careful note of this, because it happens very rarely, but I owe you an apology. I assumed that when John agreed to conceive with me and make me secundus he would have behaved like a rational person and have discussed that option with you first. I don’t know why after actually knowing the man for almost four years I would ever assume that he thinks about things at all before he acts, let alone thinks rationally. If I had known that you hadn’t agreed to it, I wouldn’t have tried to conceive with John. No, that’s probably not true. I would have done anything to stay with John. But I would have made him call you. In the very least I wouldn’t have let him have sex with you again without telling you his brilliant plan. That moron still doesn’t really understand how much of an ass he is for doing that.
So, John was a jerk to you. He was a jerk to me, too, so I know how it feels. And you and I might not have been very kind to each other. I might have resented you. Okay, I hated you. But we are all going to be parents to Dane and probably to this new one as well, and I don’t want that process to be painful. Even if you hate John, which you probably have a right to, and you hate me, because you seem determined to, we can’t just settle into denialville and silent-treatment town like John would have us do. I may not always be the most personable, but even I don’t need Jeannie to remind me that communication is important to good parenting. So I’m communicating. Feel free to communicate back. And even if John is going to ignore you in a pouty huff, I will keep you in the loop.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodney McKay, Phd., Phd., Phd.
Cam couldn’t count the number of times he’d reread the note over the years. Sometimes he read it to remind him to have patience when Rodney was being especially difficult; other times he searched the babbling text for hidden meanings. In later years he even reread it just because the cutting, sarcastic way Rodney expressed his feelings amused him. But for a long time, the email had been a kind of touchstone, a remembrance of an important moment in his life and a reminder of how forgiveness was achievable with enough work.
The next person to write was Ronon. They had been corresponding briefly over Ronon’s questions about the book Cam have gifted to him and over the occasional Earth reference that Ronon didn’t want to ask anybody on the expedition about, like why was Disneyland the happiest place on Earth and how come Earth women had no hair around their private parts.
Cam marked the email from Ronon as the first time they communicated as true friends.
~Cameron Mitchell, Colonel, SG1 team leader and air support specialist, USAF, Cheyenne Mountain, Earth, Milky Way Galaxy~
Sheppard and McKay came back today. I was surprised that you didn’t. Doctor Weir told us you would be stationed here in order to take Sheppard’s role as leader of the military. I think you will like the Lantean fighting force. They are not great fighters, but Sheppard says they are skilled for your people. I will do my best to help you train them.
I joined the Lanteans because Sheppard was their leader and even though you have courted my favor with your knowledge of your own planet’s military history and tactics, I will not pledge my allegiance to you until you prove yourself to me. Most people here don’t want Sheppard to step down and they say that he has been pressured into doing it because he is a man who gets pregnant. This was what happened to pregnant women on Sateda. I don’t agree with it, but I don’t believe that Sheppard would let himself get pushed out if he didn’t want to go.
On our last mission, I found my old team from Sateda. They had changed a lot. It made me realize that sometimes clinging to things because of the past is the wrong thing to do. I don’t blame you for Sheppard’s displacement, but if I do not believe I can follow you into battle, I will leave.
By your favor,
Ronon Dex, Specialist, SGA-1 team member, Lantean Military, Atlantis, New Lantea, Pegasus Galaxy
Cam was surprised to hear news of John’s return to Atlantis from Ronon and not through the general SGC grapevine, but SG1 had been busy tracking down an Ancient artifact that promised to put an end to the Ori and their followers forever. He was even more surprised by his next note from McKay.
Mitchell:
I don’t know how much you really want to hear from me, but I have been trying to be more empathetic recently. Elizabeth says I should practice that if I’m going to be a good donor and a good step-parent to Dane. It has been brought to my attention that I found it hurtful when John was on Earth with you and I didn’t have news of the baby, and Dane wasn’t even mine! If you feel only a fraction of how I felt being cut off like that, then I feel sorry for you.
I tried to make John send you a message himself, but he’s still mad. I don’t know if he’s mad at you for leaving him when he begged you not to or if he’s just throwing a tantrum because you didn’t give him the perfect little triumvirate family he was hoping for. He says you don’t want to hear from him and you don’t care about him, et cetera, et cetera. He can really throw himself a pity party once he dedicates himself to it.
Anyway, I’m writing to you because we just went in for a checkup on the new neonate. I know it’s against guild tradition to look so early, but Dr. Biro wanted to try out the neonatal scanner she found in the Ancient birthing room and John volunteered. There are no lingering effects of the Pasteur rupture on either John’s ability to transfer the new one or on Dane. John isn’t due to transfer for two more months, but that will still give them time as pouchmates.
Dane is a good size for his age and on the Ancient scanner we can see that he’s got John’s ears and your blue eyes and he’ll be a royal carrier. Just my luck, the boys and girls will be all over him.
I made a program to record and compress the imaging from the Ancient scanner. I’ve attached video of scans for both Dane and the new neonate. John says it’s bad luck to name him before the transfer, but if we don’t name him Max, I will go on a foot rub strike, I swear.
I’ll be in touch.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodney McKay, Phd., Phd., Phd.
P.S. Let me know when you’ll be arriving so I can maybe convince John to be less of a dick when you get here. And if you can keep an eye on my sister when she’s snooping around the SGC, that would be appreciated.
Cam was grateful for the video of Dane. It kept him company on those empty nights when Sam was in the lab and Daniel holed up with O’Neill and their daughter. At first, he didn’t look at the image of the new neonate. The very idea of it made him so angry he could barely breathe. John conceiving another child with McKay had never be an unlikely prospect, but the way in which John had gone about it made Cam see red. At least McKay could recognize that John had been an asshole.
It wasn’t until much later, when Cam was shipping out on what could be a one-way ticket to the Ori Galaxy that he looked at the video of the neonate that might be a pouchmate for his son. It wasn’t much more than a vaguely humanoid blob in a yolk sac, but somehow, Cam found it comforting. His son would have a brother and three parents who loved him, even if Cam didn’t get the boy in the end.
Rodney’s next message was troubling, but Cam was sitting in a hospital bed after getting beaten nearly to a pulp by replicators and was in no shape to do anything, even if the events Rodney described hadn’t already been resolved.
Mitchell:
I am going to kill whoever told Ronon about the concept of a babymoon (I suspect Dr. Barbie) and lead him to suggest that John and I go spend some time delivering supplies to one of the anthropologists in this tropical paradise. I also retract my previous statements about wishing to get kidnapped by sexy aliens.
To make a long story short (though you can read the long story in my mission report, attached for your perusal), John and I got picked up by a group of paranoid, leather-wearing space-pirates who avoid the Wraith by avoiding planetfall. The found an Ancient warship that they needed my genius to repair and because of John’s condition, he got to stay back on the mothership getting pampered by a beautiful woman in a leather corset while I was getting tortured into helping the crazies who were threatening to steal Dane for his ATA gene and to expose me to toxic levels of radiation.
And now, thanks to Mr. Friendly, these people are our allies and all I have to show for it are bruises and no Ancient warship.
John and Dane and the neonate are fine. I hope I haven’t worried you.
I was actually writing in order to tell you that I heard about your defeat of the Ori. Congratulations. I assume this means that you plan to join us in Atlantis as soon as you’re out of the infirmary. I already asked Carson if you could be treated here. John’s pouch is just starting to open up again for Dane to emerge and I know you wouldn’t want to miss it. I can hack your medical records from here if that skinny mean doctor won’t let you go.
Let me know what you want to do.
Sincerely,
Dr. Rodney McKay, Phd., Phd., Phd.
Cam took Rodney up on his offer and never looked back.
***
NOW
Cam collapsed down onto the cot in Rodney’s lab, groaning and covering his face with his hands. Some days he looked out over an alien ocean and marveled at how wonderful and exciting his life was. Other days, like this one, he wished he’d just retired and left this thankless job to John.
“What has you so bothered?” Rodney asked, not turning from what appeared to be a piece of a puddlejumper that he was fiddling with.
Cam sighed. “Todd’s in town. He claims that John said to ‘drop by anytime.’” In fact, Cam was surprised nobody had told Rodney about Todd’s presence. Rodney must have really threatened his staff against bothering him today. Not that Cam blamed them for wanting to obey - Rodney looked downright haggard, no doubt from everything he was trying to get done before the transfer to his pouch.
“I wouldn’t put it past that fluffy haired idiot to give an open invitation to a Wraith.” Rodney didn’t normally agree with Cam, but they were more than on the same page about their hatred of Todd. “What does Count Creeps-a-lot want anyway?”
“He says he wants to discuss strategies for the reconciliation process with Sheppard, but I’m pretty sure he’s here for the same reason he’s always here.”
“You mean to stalk my husband?”
Cam winced. He and Rodney hadn’t been able to figure out exactly why Todd was so obsessed with John. It could be that he was simply fascinated by the whole noble birth process out of a twisted desire to make himself into a Queen, or it could be a one-sided equivalent of whatever the Wraith considered to be a star-crossed love affair. John vehemently denied both interpretations and claimed that he and Todd were just temporarily cooperating and that he’d get around to killing the wraith when he felt good and ready. It was clear to everyone that even if John was blind to Todd’s little crush, he and the wraith weren’t just temporary allies and in fact could probably be considered friends.
“Yeah. And one of my staff is about to be in big trouble because someone told John that Todd was here. Turns out he had Parrish take Dane with him to the greenhouses so he could spend a little quality time with a Wraith.”
Rodney’s eyes were as wide as saucers. “In our apartment? In his condition? He can’t even get up off the couch without help, what makes him think that he can be alone in the room with a soul-sucking monster?”
“Todd had Beckett’s treatment years ago, and even if he hadn’t, I doubt he’d do anything to John. If Todd was going to eat anybody, it would be you. I’m more worried that John will overexert himself trying to look manly in front of Todd, but he kicked me out for ‘hovering.’”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “As though it matters what a Wraith thinks about him. Knowing Todd, he’s probably salivating over the idea of seeing John like this. Whenever I have to work with him he asks me to say hello to ‘my queen’ for him.” Rodney’s expression soured. “It’s disgusting.”
“Well, if Todd and his scientists hadn’t worked with Beckett to develop the serum, the Wraith would still be eating humans and the faction that discovered the location of Earth wouldn’t have been shot down by their own kind and we’d still be talking about how to wipe them out instead of hosting reconciliation talks in which the Wraith apologize for the fact that their species has been trying to eat the people of this galaxy for the past ten thousand years.”
“I’m not disputing Todd’s value as an historical figure, though in the Disney version of this story he and John definitely would be the star-crossed lovers. But why can’t he just keep his green, slimy claws off of my husband?”
Cam shrugged. Todd made him uncomfortable, but winding Rodney up was too much fun. “Maybe he agrees with Disney about what would make a better story.”
“And my stupid Captain Kirk of a husband does nothing to discourage it. Last time Todd was here I walked in on him showing the wraith his pouch slit. I suppose he expects us to just wait here while he cavorts with his wraith buddy.”
“I believe his exact words were ‘if I see either you or McKay in the next hour, I will invite the Tellarians back for a three week diplomatic conference.’”
Rodney winced. It was Tellarian tradition to be hosted in the home of the ambassador and Tellarians were probably the most clueless, accident-prone race that Cam had ever even heard of. They’d also taught Dane and Max the Tellarian equivalent of ‘The Song that Never Ends’ which somehow managed to be about three times as loud and ten times as annoying.
“I don’t know why he likes that Wraith so much.”
“Once, after a few too many beers, he said that he and Todd were like brothers and I could never understand their connection,” Rodney complained. “Apparently feeding the life back into someone is a very intimate thing.”
“Ronon says it feels kind of good.”
“Yeah, well, you don’t see Ronon inviting wraith over for dinner.”
Cam shrugged. “With the reconciliation process John has been spending a lot of time with Todd. And they are both the only ones of their species crazy enough to dream up half the things they’ve done together for the good of the galaxy. Is it so far-fetched to think that John thinks of Todd as a friend?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he does. That man is too damned friendly for his own good. But that doesn’t mean we’re inviting the Wraith out to family picnics or to open Christmas presents with our children.” Cam smiled for a moment, imagining Todd in a Santa Claus outfit. “At least I have you to back me up if he does for some reason want to introduce Dane and Max to the creepy green giant in the name of diplomacy or whatever.” Rodney had wandered over to sit next to Cam on the cot. He deftly placed his thumbs on the side of Cam’s head and pressed in the way that never failed to remove Cam’s stress headaches. Cam sighed, finally relaxing. “I don’t know what I’d do without you, flyboy.”
In truth, Cam didn’t know what he’d do without Rodney either. Without Rodney’s emails and his willingness to act as a go-between when Cam and John were still fighting, Cam doubted that he’d have found his spouses, have a good relationship with his son, or be accepted by the expedition as the military leader. “Rodney, can I ask you a question?”
“Is it a stupid question? Because I don’t subscribe to that overly-PC hippie drivel about there being no stupid questions and I will verbally eviscerate you if you annoy me with one.”
Cam could remember a time when he would have been annoyed by Rodney’s arrogant drivel (something he and John privately referred to as ego-diarrhea), but now he just laughed, knowing that Rodney didn’t actually mean it. He fielded lots and lots of not-so-smart questions from Max and Dane on a daily basis and treated them all with the seriousness of a valid challenge to the universal laws of physics.
“Having nearly been actually eviscerated, I don’t find you particularly threatening, but I don’t think this is a stupid question.”
“That’s the problem: you’re trying to think.”
Cam rolled his eyes.
“Fine, fine, now you think you’re Bill Nye. Go ahead and hit me with it.”
“I thought you hated Bill Nye.” Cam had gotten his ear talked off about it after Rodney and John had come back from some science conference gone horribly wrong.
“I hate him less now that I’ve made sure that he’s burning with jealousy for my beautiful husband and my gigantic brain.”
“Your gigantic head, maybe,” Cam grumbled, holding up his hand to forestall the conversation deteriorating further into their usual half-hearted sniping. “Jennifer and I were talking last night and she asked me if I thought I made the right decision, deciding not to marry you guys. Do you think I did?”
Rodney looked suspicious. “Why? What did you say?”
“I want to hear your perspective first.”
“Well, if we’re talking pure cost/benefit analysis here, I think it worked out pretty well for all of us, Jennifer included, so I don’t know why she’s so concerned. Unless you’re breaking up. Are you breaking up? Or maybe just having a rough patch. You’re more than welcome to sleep in the boys’ room if that’s the case. You know John and I will support you against whatever Dr. Barbie--”
“I’m going to stop you before you get your foot even deeper down your throat,” Cam said, not particularly offended. Rodney had never hid his dislike of Jennifer after she’d breached John’s medical confidentiality, and Cam didn’t really blame him, even though he thought that the two of them would actually get along if Rodney would be open to it. “I said that Jennifer and I talked, which I know in your household means one of you is trying to pull a hail Mary before something horrible happens, but it’s something me and my family actually do all the time without having to be dragged kicking and screaming into it. You and I have been spending more time together lately and Jennifer wasn’t close to any of us back then, so I think it’s strange to her that I rejected you guys, seeing as we all pretty much get along now.”
Rodney frowned. “I guess, now that I think about it, we have been spending more time together lately. But she has no need to feel threatened. Or does she? Is that what this is all about? Have you secretly been crushing on me, because while I’m flattered, we’re both married men and it wouldn’t be appropriate.”
“Don’t worry, McKay, the thought of an affair with you honestly has never once crossed my mind. I guess you can think about it as kind of a mental exercise. Without comparisons to what we both have today, do you think we could have made it work if I had said yes? I mean, when I told you my decision, I even thought you looked disappointed, though I could never figure out why.”
“Maybe because I was disappointed.”
Cam was so shocked by the statement that he actually leaned back away from Rodney. “What? I thought you hated my guts back then. It sure seemed like you wanted John all to yourself.”
“Of course I did.”
“Then having me out of the picture would have been like Christmas came early.”
Rodney stared at Cam in a rare moment of stillness for him. “You can’t tell John this.”
“Cross my heart.” Cam wasn’t in the business of keeping secrets in his marriage, but he was Rodney’s friend as much as he was John’s.
“I had convinced myself that John and I alone was an impossibility. It was what I wanted, but I couldn’t ask for it. You had a kid together and you were better than me. Not smarter, but better in the eyes of pretty much everyone. I was superfluous. So it was either I had John with you along for the ride, or I had nothing. I was so convinced that those were the only two options that when you screwed up plan A, I thought we’d all end up with nothing.”
“You know John never ends up going with plan A,” Cam joked, thinking about every damned time John came back through the gate trailing mayhem in his wake.
“You know, I knew that. I never thought to apply it to his personal life.”
“So you still haven’t answered my question: could we have made it work?”
“You know, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle makes predicting the future impossible. How am I supposed to know?”
Normally Rodney was all over hypothetical questions and he loved playing the time traveling peanut gallery when it meant that he got to insult other people’s decisions. He was being deliberately evasive. “Are you not answering me because the answer is yes or because the answer is no?”
“I’m not answering you because it’s a stupid question. The past is the past. We’re all happy now. Let it go.”
“Rodney,” Cam warned. “Don’t make me grab my lemon.”
“You don’t bluff well, Mitchell. And that thing’s a fake anyway.”
Cam hid his grin. The lemon had been a running joke between them for a long time. “Come on, McKay. Just tell me. I took care of your grumpy incubating husband yesterday. You owe me.”
“Fine, fine. It’s actually something that I thought about before you started dating Ronon.”
“You mean dating Jennifer and Ronon.”
“Chicken, egg. Remember, after Dane’s second emergence-day party, we had that beach barbecue on the mainland and Parrish made those amazing ribs?” Cam didn’t really remember events based on the food they served, but he remembered the party. “You and John were walking with the boys on your shoulders, laughing about something. I thought: they look like the perfect little family. It was a thought I used to have all the time, resentfully, of course, when John was carrying. But for the first time, it didn’t make me jealous or angry. I was happy for the kids and John, but also happy for you. I regretted that you weren’t really part of our family, because once I got to know you I realized you weren’t entirely moronic. Those tight blue swim trunks you were wearing probably also added to that regret.”
Cam laughed. Rodney never made any effort to hide the fact that he found Cam physically attractive. “Yeah, you missed your chance at this,” he pointed to himself.
“I thought about asking John to ask you again, from both of us this time. I stewed on it for weeks. I was so distracted that Woolsey took me aside and tried to have a fatherly talk with me.”
Cam thought back to that time. He had finally settled in as military commander, but Jennifer had told him that he wasn’t ready for a relationship and then settled down with the other object of his affection. John and Rodney and the boys seemed happy, but Cam still didn’t have anyone of his own. “If you had asked me then, I might have agreed. I was lonely. Even though I’d promised myself that I wouldn’t go back to John, it’s a lot easier to keep those kinds of promises when the hurt is fresh. Why didn’t you ask?”
“Ronon started asking me all these strange questions about group marriages and having sex with men and about you. I didn’t think he was your type and I thought he was already dating Jennifer, but Ronon is my friend. I figured I’d let him take a shot and after that was over, I’d ask. I never got the chance.”
Cam didn’t know what it meant to him that Rodney had wanted to marry him at some point, so he pushed that thought aside. “So you think we could have been happy?”
“If I asked you then, yes. Because then it would have been my choice.”
Cam nodded. “I told Jennifer that it was the right decision. I’m happy you agree with me.”
"It’s a miracle that we agree on something.” Though it wasn’t really. Professionally, there was still some clashing, rising to shouting matches, which had never happened with McKay on John’s watch. But they cooperated surprisingly well when it came to the boys.
Rodney smiled, standing. “I don’t know about you, but I think John is bluffing about the Tellarians. He was more annoyed by them than you were. Let’s go crash his playdate with the Wraith.”
Cam let Rodney pull him to his feet, leaving their hands clasped a moment longer than strictly necessary. John would transfer to Rodney. Ronon and Cam and Jennifer would enjoy trying to make a baby. Max would come back from his visit to Earth and the pouchmates would reunite with the minimal amount of mischief, if their parents had anything to say about it. The city would hopefully survive the reconciliation talks with the Wraith with minimal protest in the Interplanetary Marketplace and life would go on.
Cam smiled, nudging Rodney playfully as they walked down the corridor. “Fifty bucks says that we find John trying to get Todd to watch Star Wars again.”
“You’re on.”
They shook on it.
The End
A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who has been faithfully following this series and commenting. We've come a long way from the little snippet I wrote because I was frustrated to see how John treated Teyla's pregnancy and wanted to see the tables turned. You've all stuck with me through weird biology and love triangles and three characters who don't always behave admirably. This is the end of my writings in this 'verse, but if you're looking for more, please see the John/Rodney roo'verse AU Not a Lullaby (and its sequel A Nursery Rhyme for Beauty) and the deleted scenes for this fic (which provide more background on Roo'verse customs and on Jack and Daniel's romance, as well as a little snippet epilogue written by busaikko)