FanFic100: #029 Birth
“Out!” she hollers at him and he raises his hands in defeat.
“Hey, I just wanted to…” Several pairs of eyes glare at him and those of his wife are the most threatening.
“Rodney… out!” And now that Jennifer also started behaving like an ogre he starts backing out walking slowly backwards… and in the end breaking into a run for the last few feet. His escape is accompanied by Dusty alternately swearing under her breath - much more than he has ever heard her swearing before and that’s saying a lot, what with his wife being a soldier and all that - and groaning. He’s pretty sure she’d love to scream but that stupid strange woman warrior code forbids her.
Anyway, when he stumbles into the infirmary again, he’s not that dismayed about just having been thrown out of the maternity ward because if he’s honest… being present when Teyla had had Torren had been more than enough to fill his life share of birthing experiences. Which was probably already filled with his own birth.
But still… he had wanted to be daring, make a stand, show his wife he could be brave, too… and now he has to wait outside, being reduced to bystander to a process he finds frightening, because there’s so much science involved that he never really considered science and because it’s about his wife’s life and… “Oh look, it’s our father in the making, Rodney McKay.”
Just. Fucking. Great. Major Dudley-Do-Right and Captain Red Sonja. Just the people he needs right now. Or, well, not. He turns to them and gives them his patented “See if I care”-look because it always works on all the junior scientists. “Don’t you have something to blow up or shoot at?”
Unfortunately… neither Lorne nor Cadman are junior scientists and he should have remembered that because it would have spared him their smirks and grins. “No, unfortunately not,” Cadman says and throws a pointed look at Lorne who’s sitting on a gurney, with his arm in a sling and not exactly looking happy. “Thanks to my boss here, I won’t get to blow up anything. At least for today.”
Lorne throws her a dark look and mutters, “And if you continue that, Captain, you won’t get to blow up anything in the next few months.” Oh goody, just for once they are obviously set on making each others’ lives miserable instead of his. Seriously, whatever gave John the idea that putting his two greatest nemeses on the same team was a good thing?
Cadman, however, simply rolls her eyes and replies, “I told you it was completely harmless, you know.” Mh. This promises to become interesting. As far as he knows, Lorne’s team was scheduled for a mission to a really safe planet - that is safe even by non-SGC standards - so it is a little surprising to see him sitting here in the infirmary.
“Got attacked by a cute fluffy bunny, Major?” From behind him comes something that could be considered a scream but if it was one it definitely had to be someone else than his wife because she’s a Marine and they don’t scream in pain. Ever. Having reassured himself that everything is going well despite the queasy feeling deep down in his gut, he concentrates on the Major again, to fully savor the contrite and faintly embarrassed expression on his face.
“It wasn’t a bunny.” Beside the Major, Cadman seems to have difficulties with keeping a straight face. Judging from what he learned about her during The Mind Meld That Shall Never Be Mentioned Again the only thing keeping her from outright laughing is her strict military training and even that only provides a very thin thread to cling to.
Then she seems unable to contain it anymore and says, grinning, “It was more like a squirrel, really… well, kind of. Pegasus version of it or something. And it was pretty big, actually.” Major Lorne starts to look like he’s considering doing something very painful to his second in command and that immensely satisfies him.
“Just wait until I get out of here, Cadman.” He throws her another dark look but the only thing she does is answering by raising of her eyebrow.
“You do remember that you usually need me to get out of here under the staff’s noses, right?” Major Lorne is about to answer something and he starts to wonder if there’s maybe some equivalent of popcorn lying around here somewhere but Cadman adds in his direction, “So… how’s Dusty doing?”
Dusty? She asks about Dusty? Who’s getting all the medical attention she needs and people holding her hands - or who would hold her hands if she didn’t threaten everyone who came near her to do any comforting to blast their asses from here to next year - and could have all the sedatives she wants? So typical. “Fine, thanks. And I am doing fine as well. Thanks for asking.”
She exchanges a look with Lorne and they both roll their eyes. Just great. It only took them one minute to get back to harassing him. “Geez, Rodney, relax. I was just trying to be nice.”
“Yeah, and be grateful for it. She didn’t find me worthy of being nice to since we came back from M7O-647.” Whatever happened on that planet… it did nothing to amuse Major Lorne but a lot to amuse Cadman.
Maybe… he can steer the conversation back to the initial topic? “As far as I remember… Cadman completely lacks the ability to be nice to anyone.” There. That should have served for some… bonding with the Major.
And yes, Cadman wants to say something, with that typical “I’m not amused.”-look on her face but Lorne beats her to it, “Hey, careful, McKay. She’s still a member of my team.” What, that wasn’t enough to get Lorne on his side? And whatever was that supposed to mean? He just throws Lorne a look saying “Yeah, so?”
Instead of Lorne, though, Cadman answers with a kind of smug face, “That means, only he’s allowed to insult me.” Why… didn’t he ever notice before their enormously irritating habit of speaking for each other? Or well… maybe he would have realized long ago if he’d listened to Dusty telling him her amused observations concerning Major Lorne and Captain Cadman. However… whenever she did… he was just a bit distracted by… other things and he could have cared really less about anyone else than her. Oh well.
“Anyway… aren’t you at least a little bit excited about becoming a father, Rodney? I mean, in probably less than a day there will be a mini-you,” Cadman tries to turn tables on him again and adds with a frown, “Come to think of it… now there’s a scary thought.” Yeah, of course, that was to be expected. Just for a tiny moment he’d dared to assume Cadman is interested in his misery but it’s just not in her. He of all people should have known that.
“Affirmative, Captain. Kid with the Doc’s and Sergeant Mehra-McKay’s DNA… Whoa,” Lorne now adds his two cents and even does a little shudder. Then… Lorne and Cadman actually high-five each other, grinning like the trigger-happy demolition-crazy troopers they are. He really doesn’t have to deal with them any longer.
“I wouldn’t have asked either of you to do babysitting duty anyway. I shudder to think of the havoc you might wreck on a careful education.” Of course he conveniently forgets about the fact that his wife is an experienced sniper and hard-nosed soldier, not that different from Cadman after all. And that’s irrelevant anyway, because even though she doesn’t show it to anyone outside their marriage Dusty can be also very caring and tolerant. Well, in her own way. Cadman, though… Cadman is disaster on two legs and like hell he’ll ever let her into the vicinity of his child.
The Marine in question isn't very appalled by what he just said but just shrugs and says, “That’s fine with me. I do bombs, not babies, anyway.” Right. He should have known she’d say that. And dammit, what the hell takes so long about having a kid? Teyla was fast… so why can’t Dusty be?
Major Lorne of course doesn’t notice any of his distress, either and grins at Cadman. “Yeah, but think about what you could teach the little one. I’m sure the Sergeant would approve” - no, she wouldn’t - “And Rodney here… I mean, it’s not like you don’t know a few science tricks of your own, Captain.” Yes, exactly, it’s just tricks. There’s no way Cadman comes close to his genius.
He wants to say so but obviously they are trying to play it like they’ve forgotten about him. “Thanks, sir, but flattery will get you nowhere. Neither out of this infirmary nor into me helping you babysit mini-McKay.”
“I already said, I won’t…” he interjects but in this moment a wailing can be heard coming out of the room behind him and immediately he turns around, not sure if he should enter or not until one of Jennifer’s nurses pokes her head out of the door and beckons him to come back with a smile. Oh God… he’s there… his son is really here.
As he walks towards the maternity ward, he can hear Lorne say behind him, “Five bucks Dusty will kick his ass before letting him touch the kid.”
Cadman answers with, “Alright, sir. Five bucks she won’t. Trust me, you don’t know her half as well as I do,” but just for once he doesn’t care a bit about their harassing. Just this one time… there’s someone so much more important waiting for him. And with a smile that’s both relieved and insecure he finally steps into the maternity ward.
~*~
TBC in True Anarchists.