Stargate Fic: Yes Sir, That's My Baby (Sam/Rodney)
Title: Yes Sir, That's My Baby
Fandom: SG1/SGA
Pairing: Sam/Rodney
Rating: teen
Spoilers: Up to the end of season three SGA and season ten SG1. Specific references to events in 'The Road Not Taken' and 'Unending'.
Notes: Babyfic. Slightly crackish. Extremely fluffy. 6407 words.
Summary: She's pregnant, and it's complicated.
She had killed his wife, technically, and there wasn't exactly anything she could do about it. But that didn't mean she didn't feel the need to do something, especially when he was helping her, and kept looking at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.
Looking at her, in a way she couldn't really describe - hungry and desperate and unbelievably sad. Things she never thought she'd see in Rodney McKay. And it was strange and confronting, this new knowledge, that he had something like that in him at all.
He was grieving, and yet still was willing to help her.
So she gave him the only thing she could.
*
This reality was full of surprises.
There was President Landry, and his strange dystopia. Cam, not to mention her own bizarre past. But how much she enjoyed it, going to bed with McKay? That might have been the biggest surprise of all.
She just tried not to notice how he kept his eyes closed the whole time. She was fairly busy, what with bunching the sheets in her fists and trying not to yell too loud - apparently, he had elderly neighbours - so it wasn't too difficult.
Afterwards, though, when he was holding her, pressing his face against her skin, still with his eyes firmly shut, that's when she started to feel like an intruder. Probably because that's exactly what she was.
"I'm sorry." She felt so helpless, as she lay there stroking his hair. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't," he said, when he finally turned away. "I'm sorry, too."
*
The worst part was, he was so nice about everything.
Easy as it was to imagine why this reality's version of herself had divorced the guy, she was perhaps starting to understand a little of what made her marry him, too.
*
Approximately seven weeks later, she looked at Carolyn Lam and the woman's lips were moving but she wasn't hearing a sound.
She was thinking of the weeks she'd been gone, and how it had never occurred to her to keep up with her birth control regimen. She was thinking about how McKay had pressed her into the mattress, the weight of his body settling between her legs.
She was thinking about the Ori and saving the galaxy and how being pregnant was probably going to interfere with all of that.
"... Colonel Carter?" Carolyn was still talking. Words like 'sonogram' and 'tests' had registered on some level she wasn't keen on acknowledging just yet. "Do you need a minute?"
Carolyn was looking at her, carefully metered compassion on her otherwise professional face, and she realised with a sharp pang of familiar grief that she hadn't missed Janet this much in months.
The only thing she was clear on was that she was so not ready for this.
"Actually," she said, finally finding her voice as she got to her feet and back-pedalled towards the door, "this really isn't a good time."
"Colonel - Sam."
"Later. I'll... come back later. You can do whatever you want to me, I just need -" and she was out the door.
*
In her lab, hours passed during which she jumped every time someone crossed in front of the open door. She couldn't just close the door, of course, because then it would look like she was hiding.
Which she was. She was just trying not to be too obvious about it.
Nothing was working, anyway. This was her place, her sanctuary, this was where she worked, only not today it wasn't. Today, it was the place where she sat and stared at the benchtop and tried to convince herself that none of this was happening.
"Hey Sam."
She jumped. Daniel did a sort of double-take at this reaction to a simple greeting. She couldn't even muster up a weak smile, at him or Teal'c who followed him into the room.
"Did she send you to find me?"
Daniel frowned. "Did who send us to find you, why?"
"Oh. Never mind."
"Did you not intend to meet us for lunch at thirteen hundred hours?"
"Crap." She lowered her forehead into her hands, fingers bunched in her hair.
"No, it's okay, we can just go now," Daniel offered. "Not like this is the first time you got caught up in... work."
She didn't need to uncover her eyes as he trailed off to know he was surveying her completely empty workspace. Just like she didn't need to see the look that was almost certainly passing between Daniel and Teal'c to know exactly what was coming next.
"Sam."
"Daniel."
"Are you not well, Colonel Carter?"
"Actually," she began, not at all sure she wanted to do this but knowing if she was going to tell anyone, it would be these two men. "You know how the other day we went through the gate and I almost threw up for the first time in nine years? Yeah. Turns out," she paused, still not lifting her head, licking her lips and breathing slowly, carefully. "Turns out, it wasn't just something I ate. Apparently, gate travel enhances morning sickness."
*
Reactions were varied.
Daniel and Teal'c, predictably, were kind and supportive and played rock, paper, scissors to determine who would tell Jack.
Once they had determined that Jack was not, in fact, the father.
Because as much as she absolutely could not face the thought of telling him herself, she also didn't want him finding out as a matter of homeworld security which, apparently, it was when you were Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter and you fell pregnant unexpectedly after a two week jaunt in an alternate reality.
Because there were medical issues, and OBGYNs who suddenly needed top level security clearance just to get a look at her bizarre medical records, and General Landry just not really knowing what to do with her.
Vala smiled when she found out, and Sam hated herself.
"Congratulations," Vala said calmly, hugging her tightly. And, a little later, "I didn't know you were having sex. Tell me, who can the father be? It's not one of our boys, is it? Daniel, did you impregnate someone without telling me?"
*
What she didn't tell anyone was that it was McKay.
For all that her 'situation' very quickly became common knowledge, this was one thing no one needed to know.
Well, there was one person who might, possibly, have some interest in the information. But that was going to require some further thought.
*
Being effectively grounded after the news got out was irritating at best, but for this, she argued long and loud. This was one mission she couldn't miss out on.
It was worth it when she got to hug her dear friend goodbye, painfully aware of the irony of carrying a child while his own race was on the verge of extinction precisely because they'd stopped doing that themselves.
She always wondered whether Thor knew.
*
"You've got to be kidding me."
Teal'c remained, predictably, silent.
"Teal'c. I understand why you won't tell the others, but this - this is different."
"You, yourself, have many times professed the importance of maintaining the integrity of a particular timeline."
"Yes, but the timeline you're protecting will never happen, there's no integrity to protect."
He just sat there, eating his lunch, completely unmoved.
"You're literally not going to tell me anything. Teal'c, you've met my kid."
Nothing.
"All right, fine. Fine. Just - the birth. How many hours? Come on, you can tell me that."
Finally, he looked up. "You will meet this coming trial with courage and honour, of that I have little doubt."
"Of course you have little doubt," she grumbled. "You were there the first time."
She was pregnant. She was allowed to pout.
Teal'c just smiled mildly and offered her his second dessert.
She took it. "This is so unfair."
*
It was Teal'c's complete and utter refusal to tell her anything that did it.
She was starting to show now, and she rubbed her small bump and thought about everything that could go wrong. She didn't even know if...
She could guess, because Teal'c wouldn't be so damn amused by her continued attempts to get information out of him if her baby was going to die.
But it was still only guessing.
The not-knowing weighed heavily on her. The long years Teal'c had already lived stretched out in front of her and she had no idea how this whole parenthood thing was going to turn out.
She hated not knowing. And she felt the increasing need to share this crushing sense of responsibility and doubt. With someone else. Whether he wanted it or not.
*
"I have to say I was surprised you weren't there to meet me, especially since my presence was specifically requested, and by you no less, which I can only assume was - oh."
Standing in the doorway of her lab where she was, once again, hiding as if her life depended on it, Rodney McKay was staring, mouth open, at her belly.
It was getting kind of hard to miss.
He closed his mouth. "Well. I suppose I'm required to say 'congratulations'. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that next time I come to Earth all life hasn't been wiped out because one of several current enemy threats of unimaginable size and strength showed up while you were at a 'Mommy and Me' class. And if you ever have reason to be in contact with my sister again, don't tell her I said that." He paused. "Did I say congratulations?"
"Yeah, thanks." She got to her feet.
He was still staring at her. She stared back.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak, said, "I'll be right back," and made a beeline past him out the door.
Only to run straight into her four team mates who were waiting out in the hall.
Briefly, she considered making a run for it in the opposite direction.
"Oh please," Vala said. "You engineered a, frankly, extremely flimsy excuse to get that strange little man all the way here from another galaxy. You didn't think we'd figure it out?"
Cameron bounced a little on his heels. "We're apparently just a bit smarter than you think we are."
"And since you went to all the trouble of getting him here," Daniel added, "you may as well tell him. You know you'll just beat yourself up over it if you don't."
"If you require our assistance," Teal'c said, "we will be here."
Suddenly she was very aware of just how lucky she was, having such good friends, who were here for her. And who didn't say a single thing about it being McKay when, really, a little judgement wouldn't have been entirely out of place.
It only made her feel worse.
"If you wish," Teal'c spoke again when she didn't move or say anything for a few seconds, no doubt thinking of a certain phone call he had already made to a certain Airforce General, "I will perform this duty on your behalf."
"Oh thank god," she said. Then winced. "No, wait... No. Thank you, I can do this." She turned around, took a step towards her lab, then stopped. "I might need a push."
Several hands made contact with her back and shoulders and propelled her forwards.
*
"Okay," she said, slamming down her laptop screen and almost catching McKay's fingers - because he was of course in the process of going through her files. "Here's the thing. I'm pregnant."
"Yes, and apparently suffering some affliction which makes people state the blindingly obvious."
"It's your baby."
"No it's not."
"Actually, it is."
"Well, actually, I think I would remember," he gestured vaguely, "that."
"You wouldn't remember, no." No matter how many times she'd imagined this conversation in her head, and even knowing exactly how 'McKay' McKay could be, somehow, this was so much worse. "Look, it's complicated."
A look of horror was dawning on his face. "Oh god, I always knew this would happen to me. I've had a recurring nightmare since freshman year when I was so happy to finally have a girlfriend but then she started talking about giving birth to the master race and I found out she'd gone off her medication the day before I met her, which was when everything started making so much more sense."
She frowned. "McKay, you're freaking out."
"You," he collected himself enough to point an accusing finger, "stole my sperm and impregnated yourself with it." He continued waving the finger at her as he searched frantically for an answer and then simply concluded, "Somehow."
She rolled her eyes. "Not that kind of complicated. The truth is I... recently spent a few weeks in an alternate reality. There was a Rodney McKay there and..." Now it was her turn to gesture vaguely.
He got the idea. And somehow managed to look hurt, and at the same time, not at all surprised. "Oh, he made you call him 'Rod', didn't he."
*
Once they got the details straightened out, McKay started arguing in earnest.
"Well, it's not mine."
She sighed. "I know this is... weird. And I'm sorry for dragging you all this way just to spring this on you, but honestly, I didn't know what else to do. This isn't the kind of thing you tell someone in an intergalactic email." She shrugged. "And the truth is, no one expected me to be pregnant this long. I mean, I threw birth control and gate travel at the poor kid the first two months I was back in this reality. Then there's my screwed up body chemistry, on top of the fact that half her DNA comes from a parallel universe -"
"Her?"
A smile pulled at her lips and she went with it, grinning at him. "It's a girl."
"Oh. It's still not mine. She. Isn't mine, I mean." He winced at his own awkwardness and, well, she knew how that felt.
"I needed you to know," she said slowly, this being something she'd had a lot of time to think about, "because no, you're not her father, but you are the closest thing she'll ever have. And biologically, at least as far as genetics is concerned, she is your daughter."
"No," he said, "she's not."
*
"Well, sure. I mean, if I ever need a kidney -"
In the commissary, after a large and citrus-free meal, McKay was... still McKay.
But he did seem to be warming to the idea, at least in so far as it worked in his favour.
*
"I want to register my objection to procreating with someone with whom, outside of hallucinations and the occasional," he smirked, "idle fantasy, I've never even gotten to first base, let alone exchanged any of the necessary bodily fluids."
The smirking had started once he seemed to realise if she'd slept with an alternate version of himself, it greatly improved his own chances in that regard.
"Technically," she said, "it's not your baby."
"Yes, she is. She's already experiencing the benefits of my superior genes -"
"So I can blame you next time she kicks me in the bladder at two am. Good to know."
"Oh, it... kicks? Can I..." He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, suddenly - didn't look too sure, either, about whether he wanted to do anything at all.
"Uh, she's not really moving right now. There's not much to feel, so."
"Oh."
And they were back to awkward.
But he looked genuinely disappointed for a moment there and she found herself in the unwelcome position of feeling bad for the guy. The last time that happened - well, just look how that turned out.
"You're right, you know."
"Of course I am. About what?"
"The sex thing, it must be weird for you."
"Well, weird is a relative term," he said slowly, hedging a little. "Certainly it's no stranger than the idea you met a version of me you liked enough to -" He cleared his throat, gaining steam. "Although, come to think of it, 'unfair' would be a better term for it, considering you've already had the full Rodney McKay Experience. I actually think if I wasn't still so attracted to you, even with all of that... pregnancy thing happening, I might be feeling rather violated right now."
"I agree."
He frowned. "Really?"
"Sure. I mean, it's not fair. And with the way my hormones are just going crazy these days - you wouldn't believe it. Anyway, it's just a shame you're shipping off back to Atlantis, or we could have worked something out."
He gaped at her. "Oh come on, that's just - that's just cruel. What is the matter with you?"
She grinned, just letting it sit for a moment.
"He had glasses." He looked at her warily. "The other you." She mimed a pair over her eyes. "It was hot."
He managed to look even more pained. Her grin broadened.
And it was cruel, or at least very mean. He wasn't responsible for any of this - the hormones and the constant need to pee, the restricted off-world travel - not even a little bit, and yet, somehow she felt quite within her rights to blame him for it, anyway.
And torture him accordingly.
Looking equal parts disgusted and resigned, he collected his laptop bag from the corner of her lab and held up a hand. "I have to go."
"I know. Take care of yourself, Rodney."
She was still smiling a little in amusement, and was right up until the moment he turned and came at her.
"McKay!" she protested as soon as he released her.
"First base," he said, entirely too pleased with himself. "Oh, and," she was still too busy considering violence to avoid it when he gave her belly a brief, uncomfortable pat, "goodbye to you, too."
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: baby names
I've given it some thought, and here is a list of unacceptable names:
Madison - my sister used it already.
Jeannie, Emma, Margaret, Ruth - relatives I'd prefer didn't think I like them.
Michelle, Jane, Joanna, Yu-Li, Karen, Nadia - old girlfriends.
Anything else is fine.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Re: baby names
Meredith is such a pretty name for a girl, don't you think?
*
To: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr Rodney McKay
Re: Re: Re: baby names
Cute.
Enjoy childbirth. I hear that's fun.
*
She was giving a presentation in the briefing room when her water broke.
Childbirth was not fun.
*
To: Dr. Rodney McKay
From: Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell
Re: Congratulations
Sam's a little busy right now, but I'm under orders to inform you of the following:
- Seven pounds, six ounces.
- Kid's fine, scored a nine on something called the Apgar Test. That's supposed to be good.
- Sam's fine too.
- There's pictures attached.
Hope to see you real soon, McKay.
*
"Hello?"
"Do you think it's wrong to want to zat your own child?"
"Sam?"
"Hi Daniel. How are you?"
"Do... you have a zat gun in the house?"
"That was a joke. Sorry. I'm tired."
The baby was three weeks old and she would not stop crying. Sam wasn't entirely aware of what time it was, or how long it had been since she'd had more than two hours sleep in a row, and she must have sounded as bad as she felt because Daniel seemed fairly concerned as he told her he was coming right over.
She didn't really care. All she knew was that anyone who thought sleep deprivation and loud, constant noise weren't very effective methods of torture had never cared for a newborn.
It wasn't as if she didn't have experience with more conventional forms of torture, either. She was practically an expert on the subject.
When she answered the door, she found not just Daniel, but Teal'c, Vala and Cameron, too. So maybe she had somehow sounded even worse than she felt on the phone.
"It was a joke!" she said. "She's alive and well, as you can hear."
Daniel held something out and dropped them in her palm. Earplugs.
*
She was unconscious for the next twelve or so hours, but apparently events occurred as follows.
Daniel, Vala, and Cameron cleaned, while Teal'c spent approximately three hours convincing a very stubborn infant that drinking from a bottle wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to anyone.
At some point, General Landry called, wondering where an entire SG team had disappeared to in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Once he heard what they were doing, he offered to come and help - and when they declined, he had Walter order them all pizza instead.
At some other point, supposedly - because she didn't actually remember any of it - she got up and wandered around her quiet, empty house until she encountered Vala, perched on the washing machine, listening to her (well, probably not her) iPod and flipping through a magazine.
"Oh," she said, hopping down, "you're up. Don't worry, the boys have taken her for a walk." She took Sam by the arm and steered her back towards the bedroom. "Are you hungry? There's plenty of pizza."
But she simply laid back down again and Vala petted her hair until she fell back asleep.
When she woke up properly some hours later, her bathroom and kitchen were sparkling, her fridge was stocked with groceries, and all five loads of laundry she'd been putting off doing we're neatly folded. Meanwhile, her breasts were really sore, but she was actually happy to see her daughter when Daniel rather eagerly passed her over.
He, along with Cameron, Vala and Teal'c, on the other hand, looked as if they'd gone up against a bunch of system lords, the replicators, Anubis, and the Ori, all at once. And lost.
*
To: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr Rodney McKay
Re: scheduled visit
Having made the mistake of telling people I work with about this, I'm now coming to Earth again. Not right now, fate of the galaxy, etc.
See you in a month.
*
"Zelenka," Rodney said as he crossed the threshold and made his way past her. "He's - yes, he's good. Decent scientist, reliable - but he's not me, he's not even you."
"Hi," she said, watching him dither in her front hallway, "Rodney. Come on in."
She turned back to meet the eyes of the airman holding McKay's bag, and got a weary look along with an armful of luggage. "Ma'am," he nodded politely, before escaping back to the car.
She shut the front door and dropped Rodney's things where she stood. He trailed after her as she headed for the baby's room, talking the whole time.
It wasn't until she put the baby in his arms that he shut up.
*
"Well," he said, "this isn't so bad."
*
She really was a beautiful baby - a completely objective assessment on Sam's part. She'd also just started smiling, and was willing to do so for just about anyone. So she lay in McKay's arms, all dimples and sunshine, and it was really no surprise even he was won over.
For around forty-five seconds.
Then she started crying and he quickly handed her back and took two or three large steps away.
Sam was too busy going through the now routine process of breastfeeding to attend to his panic attack, however, leaving him to hover there on the edge of her vision while her daughter nursed hungrily.
"I don't know her name," he said eventually. "What did you pick?"
She looked up to find he had sidled a little closer again. "Alice."
"That's... nice. I guess. Better than Me- a lot of things."
She dropped her head and snickered a little under the guise of arranging the baby blanket.
"Yes, very funny. If you want to talk inappropriate naming conventions, Lewis Carroll was a paedophile last I checked. Do you have anything to eat around here that doesn't come from inside you?"
She looked at him disapprovingly. It had absolutely no affect, so she just rolled her eyes and pointed towards the kitchen instead.
*
And then there was the time she misplaced the baby.
She was on base, because she wanted to pick up the results of Dr Lee's latest simulations for the new hybrid Asgard power cores. Rodney and the baby came with her and they'd been pouring over her computer - they really needed to get him one of his own for these occasions - when Cameron came bounding in the door. Teal'c followed at a more sedate pace.
"Hey, Sam, heard you were here and there she is! There's my girl." He already had the baby out of her carrier and held her up in the air before gathering her in his arms. "McKay," he acknowledged, seemingly as an afterthought, if a rather pointed one.
Rodney cleared his throat, uttered, "Yes, hello." Then hunched back over the screen with grim determination.
He'd never forgiven Cam for threatening him with citrus.
She just watched the two men for a moment - Teal'c standing at Cam's shoulder, smiling down at Alice as she yawned and fussed a little, Cam crooning at her, jouncing her up and down. "Who's the prettiest girl in the world? Have you been giving your mamma hell? Have you? That's my clever girl."
Grinning, she looked back down at the report.
*
Sometimes, when she was working, large amounts of time passed without her having any real sense of it.
But she was pretty sure it hadn't been more than an hour when she looked up suddenly and said, "Where's the baby?"
*
Cameron was at his desk, in his office.
She entered and stared around the room. Then stared at him. "Where's my daughter?"
"Oh," he said. "Yeah, the General dropped by. Apparently, I have too much paperwork to do. Hey, nobody does paperwork like me. I'm a machine. This?" he indicated the form currently under his hand, "could have waited another week."
"So," she just barely restrained the urge to smack him across the head, "Alice is with the General?"
"He totally stole her and gave a bogus reason for it, yes."
She turned and ran right into Rodney, who was hovering in the doorway.
"Come on," she said, pushing him through the door.
*
General Landry put his finger to his lips as they entered. The baby carrier was on his desk, facing him. "Just now drifted off," he hissed.
She moved around the desk to actually see Alice and affirm her continued existence. Seeing her daughter's sleeping face, a tightly wound thread of fear in her chest uncoiled and she felt as if she was breathing for the first time in ten minutes.
"Carolyn always wanted 'Rock-a-Bye Baby', a real traditionalist," the General informed them, sotto voice. "This little girl? 'Hickory Dickory Dock'. Does the trick every time."
The commander of the base that was Earth's first defence against enemies too numerous to count was singing her daughter nursery rhymes.
"Sorry, Sir," she said, "I'll just take her and -"
He stopped her as she reached for the handles. "No no, she's fine. Leave her, I'm sure you and Dr McKay have work to do. I'll call if she wakes up. And don't worry, should anything happen, Teal'c is out there pretending he has a reason for being in the briefing room."
Teal'c, who had appointed himself Lord Protector of her daughter's safety the day she was born, was indeed lurking in the briefing room, pretending to be reading a file. She sent him a smile through the window. She wasn't exactly going to object; apparently with her for a mother, Alice needed all the help she could get.
McKay, she noticed, had put her between him and Teal'c's line of sight. If he had a grudge against Cam, he was just plain old scared of Teal'c.
"He reminds me of Ronon," he had said when confronted about it. "Do you know how long it took me to stop being afraid he'd just kill me with his bare hands one day for the fun of it? And I'm not responsible for anyone on his team being pregnant. Not that I'm responsible for anyone on Teal'c's team being - I mean I wasn't even there! Is he the kind of person likely to make that distinction?"
"He would never kill you," she'd assured him at the time. Because what good were Rodney's neuroses if she couldn't have a little fun with them. "Hurt you a little, maybe."
With a sigh, Sam turned away from the General, who'd started humming, and collected Rodney on her way out the door. "Thank you, General."
He waved her off as if babysitting was all par for the course. No big deal, just another day at the SGC.
Boy, her job was weird.
*
"How do people be parents?" Rodney asked, as they stood waiting for the elevator.
"I'm still figuring that one out."
"It's horrible."
She nodded. "I know! The SGC could come under attack at any minute. It's dangerous here. But then I think, the planet could come under attack at any minute, and if it does, then the SGC is the safest place for her to be. It's completely contradictory."
He stared at her unhappily. "Can we go be scientists again?"
"Oh god, yes."
*
When they made it home that afternoon, Sam realised there were many more adventures in parenting Rodney had yet to experience. So she got right on that.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Not really."
"This is disgusting. There's something seriously wrong with an entire portion of the population who can't take care of their own bodily functions. Humans should be born fully functional, like horses, or fish."
"Yes. It's definitely the eleven week old who has the problem, here. Now, you powder."
"Powder what? Why is this so complicated?"
She patted his back. "You're doing fine. It's changing a diaper, not astrophysics."
"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure that's the problem."
"The sticky things need to be tight, but not too tight."
"'Sticky things'?"
"And you're done."
"I'm done? I'm done! I did it! Well, clearly, I'm a genius."
"Oh, you're something."
He was too busy beaming at her, and the baby, and his own brilliance, to register the sarcasm.
It was... sort of cute.
"Hey," she said, smiling in spite of herself, "you know, I appreciate this. You really don't have to be here, or really have anything to do with this and -"
His face had been falling rapidly as she spoke and he suddenly blurted out, "I hate children!"
"Okay," she replied dubiously.
"They're tiny," he said, "and weird. And you can't employ anything approaching logic with them. I mean, this one's all right so far, but the fact that she represents some sort of legacy which, unlike my life's work, I have absolutely no control over but that people will look at and for some reason associate with me - frankly, it's incredibly disturbing. What if she likes loud, popular music, or ponies, or... other children?"
"I can almost guarantee that she will."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
She shrugged. "Actually, I'm more worried she'll go into the soft sciences."
She wasn't, of course, it was just fun egging him on. For a moment she thought he might have a stroke but then he collected himself admirably.
"You see, this is my point. I don't like children, I don't... feel any sort of obligation to this one, morally and certainly not financially. If it was anyone else who came to me and said 'hey, you knocked me up in an alternate reality' - but it wasn't anyone else, it was you and..." He hesitated, gesturing widely. "That's why I'm here. Not because I'm a good, decent person, because I'm mostly not. I'm not selfless or patient, or generous. I shouldn't be anyone's father. It's a good thing it was that other guy - I bet he was all those things. Probably why you -"
"I felt bad for him, Rodney," she cut him off. "Really, really bad for him."
"What, it was like pity sex?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Right, of course, pity sex - last resort of pathetic losers everywhere."
"You, I don't feel sorry for at all."
He paused, clearly disappointed. "Not even a little?"
She laughed. And then she kissed him.
"Oh," he said, moments later, "you don't pity me - that's a good thing!" His hand slid around the back of her head and this time he kissed her. "That means I win."
"You win?"
"You like me better than him. Don't ruin this for me by getting all indignant or feminist or whatever."
At least, she rationalised, when he was kissing her, he wasn't talking. It was the best reason for wrapping an arm around his neck and slipping him the tongue she could think of. But not the only one.
It was different than kissing the other Rodney. For one thing, this Rodney, her Rodney, kept stopping and staring at her in apparent wonder before diving back in with enthusiasm.
He was, she quickly found, very enthusiastic.
She only just remembered to keep one hand on Alice's little body to ensure she didn't roll off the change table while Mommy was busy making out with Daddy.
"Rodney," she mumbled between kisses, as one of this hands slid under her top and up her back, and the other was heading in a similar direction, only more towards her front. "Alice."
"Who? Oh."
She turned her head and looked down. They were being regarded seriously by a pair of big blue eyes.
Rodney took his hand off her breast. "And when is her bedtime, exactly?"
*
He'd been occupying her house for five days, and the driver had returned to take him back. Once she got him out of her bed, and suggested he put on pants - which was kind of pushing the extent to which she was willing to accommodate him - she went and got Alice from her crib and held her out to him.
"Here, say goodbye."
He took her, holding her against his chest and frowning down at her little face, all scrunched up in sleep. "I like her," he said. "I didn't think I would."
"You can come back and see her whenever you want."
"And you? I assume that would be okay, since -"
"Oh, sure," she shrugged, hiding a smile. "Since we're kind of a package deal these days."
"Should we get married? I'm just asking, because -"
"No."
"Fine, that's fine. But you know, if you wanted to -"
"Rodney."
"Fine."
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: The future welfare of our child.
Children who live in father-absent households are far more likely to be incarcerated, become drug addicts, and drop out of school.
Something to think about.
Rodney
P.S. While I, and the many people here in Atlantis who apparently have nothing better to do than make stupid noises over baby pictures all day, do appreciate the constant stream of happy snaps, I think it's safe to say that by now everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy has seen the one of me passed out on the couch in my boxer shorts with Alice asleep on my chest. We're all in agreement; it's the most adorable thing anyone's ever seen. You can stop sending it every single time, thanks.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Your future sex life.
I feel I should inform you that your chances of getting laid the next time you're on Earth shrink exponentially every time you associate single motherhood with criminal, drug addict children.
P.S. Glad you're enjoying the baby pictures. I made sure to send along a few more of my favourite shot - in these ones you can actually see who's drooling more, you or the baby.
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: Understood.
It's a well known fact that married men live longer than unmarried men.
I think Alice deserves to have a paternal influence in her life as long as possible, don't you?
Rodney
P.S. You're not the only one who knows how to work a camera. I thought you might be interested, so I'm sending you a copy of the picture I've been using as my screensaver the past few months. You're a really sound sleeper, did you know that?
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: I know where you live, McKay
Dear Rodney,
Your life expectancy should be the least of your worries, seeing as how you're already a dead man.
Lots of love,
Sam
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: Oh please.
I'm approximately two million light years away, surrounded by very large Marines, Teyla, and Ronon. Sheppard doesn't count, I don't think I can trust him under these circumstances.
Back at you baby,
Rodney
P.S. We're still getting married.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Sure
If we can manage to spend a week occupying the same solar system, I'm all yours.
P.S. Alice is teething. You can have her, too.
*
She never should have underestimated McKay's ability to achieve something once he put his mind to it. Much as she liked to malign, it was a fairly impressive mind.
Nor should she have doubted his ability to hold her to one measly sarcastic comment.
He'd changed, living in Atlantis. Mostly - and if pressed she would grudgingly admit it - not for the worse.
*
The honeymoon was in Vegas. It lasted exactly sixteen hours and thirty three minutes before they were both beamed aboard the Odyssey. Something to do with saving the planet.
Teal'c was babysitting at the time, Alice was perfectly safe. Sam eventually remembered this and was suitably comforted.
(She forgave her own momentary memory lapse - being beamed aboard a battlecruiser on full alert while wearing nothing but a sheet tends to be one hell of a distraction.)
The end.
Fandom: SG1/SGA
Pairing: Sam/Rodney
Rating: teen
Spoilers: Up to the end of season three SGA and season ten SG1. Specific references to events in 'The Road Not Taken' and 'Unending'.
Notes: Babyfic. Slightly crackish. Extremely fluffy. 6407 words.
Summary: She's pregnant, and it's complicated.
She had killed his wife, technically, and there wasn't exactly anything she could do about it. But that didn't mean she didn't feel the need to do something, especially when he was helping her, and kept looking at her when he thought she wouldn't notice.
Looking at her, in a way she couldn't really describe - hungry and desperate and unbelievably sad. Things she never thought she'd see in Rodney McKay. And it was strange and confronting, this new knowledge, that he had something like that in him at all.
He was grieving, and yet still was willing to help her.
So she gave him the only thing she could.
*
This reality was full of surprises.
There was President Landry, and his strange dystopia. Cam, not to mention her own bizarre past. But how much she enjoyed it, going to bed with McKay? That might have been the biggest surprise of all.
She just tried not to notice how he kept his eyes closed the whole time. She was fairly busy, what with bunching the sheets in her fists and trying not to yell too loud - apparently, he had elderly neighbours - so it wasn't too difficult.
Afterwards, though, when he was holding her, pressing his face against her skin, still with his eyes firmly shut, that's when she started to feel like an intruder. Probably because that's exactly what she was.
"I'm sorry." She felt so helpless, as she lay there stroking his hair. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't," he said, when he finally turned away. "I'm sorry, too."
*
The worst part was, he was so nice about everything.
Easy as it was to imagine why this reality's version of herself had divorced the guy, she was perhaps starting to understand a little of what made her marry him, too.
*
Approximately seven weeks later, she looked at Carolyn Lam and the woman's lips were moving but she wasn't hearing a sound.
She was thinking of the weeks she'd been gone, and how it had never occurred to her to keep up with her birth control regimen. She was thinking about how McKay had pressed her into the mattress, the weight of his body settling between her legs.
She was thinking about the Ori and saving the galaxy and how being pregnant was probably going to interfere with all of that.
"... Colonel Carter?" Carolyn was still talking. Words like 'sonogram' and 'tests' had registered on some level she wasn't keen on acknowledging just yet. "Do you need a minute?"
Carolyn was looking at her, carefully metered compassion on her otherwise professional face, and she realised with a sharp pang of familiar grief that she hadn't missed Janet this much in months.
The only thing she was clear on was that she was so not ready for this.
"Actually," she said, finally finding her voice as she got to her feet and back-pedalled towards the door, "this really isn't a good time."
"Colonel - Sam."
"Later. I'll... come back later. You can do whatever you want to me, I just need -" and she was out the door.
*
In her lab, hours passed during which she jumped every time someone crossed in front of the open door. She couldn't just close the door, of course, because then it would look like she was hiding.
Which she was. She was just trying not to be too obvious about it.
Nothing was working, anyway. This was her place, her sanctuary, this was where she worked, only not today it wasn't. Today, it was the place where she sat and stared at the benchtop and tried to convince herself that none of this was happening.
"Hey Sam."
She jumped. Daniel did a sort of double-take at this reaction to a simple greeting. She couldn't even muster up a weak smile, at him or Teal'c who followed him into the room.
"Did she send you to find me?"
Daniel frowned. "Did who send us to find you, why?"
"Oh. Never mind."
"Did you not intend to meet us for lunch at thirteen hundred hours?"
"Crap." She lowered her forehead into her hands, fingers bunched in her hair.
"No, it's okay, we can just go now," Daniel offered. "Not like this is the first time you got caught up in... work."
She didn't need to uncover her eyes as he trailed off to know he was surveying her completely empty workspace. Just like she didn't need to see the look that was almost certainly passing between Daniel and Teal'c to know exactly what was coming next.
"Sam."
"Daniel."
"Are you not well, Colonel Carter?"
"Actually," she began, not at all sure she wanted to do this but knowing if she was going to tell anyone, it would be these two men. "You know how the other day we went through the gate and I almost threw up for the first time in nine years? Yeah. Turns out," she paused, still not lifting her head, licking her lips and breathing slowly, carefully. "Turns out, it wasn't just something I ate. Apparently, gate travel enhances morning sickness."
*
Reactions were varied.
Daniel and Teal'c, predictably, were kind and supportive and played rock, paper, scissors to determine who would tell Jack.
Once they had determined that Jack was not, in fact, the father.
Because as much as she absolutely could not face the thought of telling him herself, she also didn't want him finding out as a matter of homeworld security which, apparently, it was when you were Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter and you fell pregnant unexpectedly after a two week jaunt in an alternate reality.
Because there were medical issues, and OBGYNs who suddenly needed top level security clearance just to get a look at her bizarre medical records, and General Landry just not really knowing what to do with her.
Vala smiled when she found out, and Sam hated herself.
"Congratulations," Vala said calmly, hugging her tightly. And, a little later, "I didn't know you were having sex. Tell me, who can the father be? It's not one of our boys, is it? Daniel, did you impregnate someone without telling me?"
*
What she didn't tell anyone was that it was McKay.
For all that her 'situation' very quickly became common knowledge, this was one thing no one needed to know.
Well, there was one person who might, possibly, have some interest in the information. But that was going to require some further thought.
*
Being effectively grounded after the news got out was irritating at best, but for this, she argued long and loud. This was one mission she couldn't miss out on.
It was worth it when she got to hug her dear friend goodbye, painfully aware of the irony of carrying a child while his own race was on the verge of extinction precisely because they'd stopped doing that themselves.
She always wondered whether Thor knew.
*
"You've got to be kidding me."
Teal'c remained, predictably, silent.
"Teal'c. I understand why you won't tell the others, but this - this is different."
"You, yourself, have many times professed the importance of maintaining the integrity of a particular timeline."
"Yes, but the timeline you're protecting will never happen, there's no integrity to protect."
He just sat there, eating his lunch, completely unmoved.
"You're literally not going to tell me anything. Teal'c, you've met my kid."
Nothing.
"All right, fine. Fine. Just - the birth. How many hours? Come on, you can tell me that."
Finally, he looked up. "You will meet this coming trial with courage and honour, of that I have little doubt."
"Of course you have little doubt," she grumbled. "You were there the first time."
She was pregnant. She was allowed to pout.
Teal'c just smiled mildly and offered her his second dessert.
She took it. "This is so unfair."
*
It was Teal'c's complete and utter refusal to tell her anything that did it.
She was starting to show now, and she rubbed her small bump and thought about everything that could go wrong. She didn't even know if...
She could guess, because Teal'c wouldn't be so damn amused by her continued attempts to get information out of him if her baby was going to die.
But it was still only guessing.
The not-knowing weighed heavily on her. The long years Teal'c had already lived stretched out in front of her and she had no idea how this whole parenthood thing was going to turn out.
She hated not knowing. And she felt the increasing need to share this crushing sense of responsibility and doubt. With someone else. Whether he wanted it or not.
*
"I have to say I was surprised you weren't there to meet me, especially since my presence was specifically requested, and by you no less, which I can only assume was - oh."
Standing in the doorway of her lab where she was, once again, hiding as if her life depended on it, Rodney McKay was staring, mouth open, at her belly.
It was getting kind of hard to miss.
He closed his mouth. "Well. I suppose I'm required to say 'congratulations'. I'll just keep my fingers crossed that next time I come to Earth all life hasn't been wiped out because one of several current enemy threats of unimaginable size and strength showed up while you were at a 'Mommy and Me' class. And if you ever have reason to be in contact with my sister again, don't tell her I said that." He paused. "Did I say congratulations?"
"Yeah, thanks." She got to her feet.
He was still staring at her. She stared back.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak, said, "I'll be right back," and made a beeline past him out the door.
Only to run straight into her four team mates who were waiting out in the hall.
Briefly, she considered making a run for it in the opposite direction.
"Oh please," Vala said. "You engineered a, frankly, extremely flimsy excuse to get that strange little man all the way here from another galaxy. You didn't think we'd figure it out?"
Cameron bounced a little on his heels. "We're apparently just a bit smarter than you think we are."
"And since you went to all the trouble of getting him here," Daniel added, "you may as well tell him. You know you'll just beat yourself up over it if you don't."
"If you require our assistance," Teal'c said, "we will be here."
Suddenly she was very aware of just how lucky she was, having such good friends, who were here for her. And who didn't say a single thing about it being McKay when, really, a little judgement wouldn't have been entirely out of place.
It only made her feel worse.
"If you wish," Teal'c spoke again when she didn't move or say anything for a few seconds, no doubt thinking of a certain phone call he had already made to a certain Airforce General, "I will perform this duty on your behalf."
"Oh thank god," she said. Then winced. "No, wait... No. Thank you, I can do this." She turned around, took a step towards her lab, then stopped. "I might need a push."
Several hands made contact with her back and shoulders and propelled her forwards.
*
"Okay," she said, slamming down her laptop screen and almost catching McKay's fingers - because he was of course in the process of going through her files. "Here's the thing. I'm pregnant."
"Yes, and apparently suffering some affliction which makes people state the blindingly obvious."
"It's your baby."
"No it's not."
"Actually, it is."
"Well, actually, I think I would remember," he gestured vaguely, "that."
"You wouldn't remember, no." No matter how many times she'd imagined this conversation in her head, and even knowing exactly how 'McKay' McKay could be, somehow, this was so much worse. "Look, it's complicated."
A look of horror was dawning on his face. "Oh god, I always knew this would happen to me. I've had a recurring nightmare since freshman year when I was so happy to finally have a girlfriend but then she started talking about giving birth to the master race and I found out she'd gone off her medication the day before I met her, which was when everything started making so much more sense."
She frowned. "McKay, you're freaking out."
"You," he collected himself enough to point an accusing finger, "stole my sperm and impregnated yourself with it." He continued waving the finger at her as he searched frantically for an answer and then simply concluded, "Somehow."
She rolled her eyes. "Not that kind of complicated. The truth is I... recently spent a few weeks in an alternate reality. There was a Rodney McKay there and..." Now it was her turn to gesture vaguely.
He got the idea. And somehow managed to look hurt, and at the same time, not at all surprised. "Oh, he made you call him 'Rod', didn't he."
*
Once they got the details straightened out, McKay started arguing in earnest.
"Well, it's not mine."
She sighed. "I know this is... weird. And I'm sorry for dragging you all this way just to spring this on you, but honestly, I didn't know what else to do. This isn't the kind of thing you tell someone in an intergalactic email." She shrugged. "And the truth is, no one expected me to be pregnant this long. I mean, I threw birth control and gate travel at the poor kid the first two months I was back in this reality. Then there's my screwed up body chemistry, on top of the fact that half her DNA comes from a parallel universe -"
"Her?"
A smile pulled at her lips and she went with it, grinning at him. "It's a girl."
"Oh. It's still not mine. She. Isn't mine, I mean." He winced at his own awkwardness and, well, she knew how that felt.
"I needed you to know," she said slowly, this being something she'd had a lot of time to think about, "because no, you're not her father, but you are the closest thing she'll ever have. And biologically, at least as far as genetics is concerned, she is your daughter."
"No," he said, "she's not."
*
"Well, sure. I mean, if I ever need a kidney -"
In the commissary, after a large and citrus-free meal, McKay was... still McKay.
But he did seem to be warming to the idea, at least in so far as it worked in his favour.
*
"I want to register my objection to procreating with someone with whom, outside of hallucinations and the occasional," he smirked, "idle fantasy, I've never even gotten to first base, let alone exchanged any of the necessary bodily fluids."
The smirking had started once he seemed to realise if she'd slept with an alternate version of himself, it greatly improved his own chances in that regard.
"Technically," she said, "it's not your baby."
"Yes, she is. She's already experiencing the benefits of my superior genes -"
"So I can blame you next time she kicks me in the bladder at two am. Good to know."
"Oh, it... kicks? Can I..." He didn't seem to know what to do with his hands, suddenly - didn't look too sure, either, about whether he wanted to do anything at all.
"Uh, she's not really moving right now. There's not much to feel, so."
"Oh."
And they were back to awkward.
But he looked genuinely disappointed for a moment there and she found herself in the unwelcome position of feeling bad for the guy. The last time that happened - well, just look how that turned out.
"You're right, you know."
"Of course I am. About what?"
"The sex thing, it must be weird for you."
"Well, weird is a relative term," he said slowly, hedging a little. "Certainly it's no stranger than the idea you met a version of me you liked enough to -" He cleared his throat, gaining steam. "Although, come to think of it, 'unfair' would be a better term for it, considering you've already had the full Rodney McKay Experience. I actually think if I wasn't still so attracted to you, even with all of that... pregnancy thing happening, I might be feeling rather violated right now."
"I agree."
He frowned. "Really?"
"Sure. I mean, it's not fair. And with the way my hormones are just going crazy these days - you wouldn't believe it. Anyway, it's just a shame you're shipping off back to Atlantis, or we could have worked something out."
He gaped at her. "Oh come on, that's just - that's just cruel. What is the matter with you?"
She grinned, just letting it sit for a moment.
"He had glasses." He looked at her warily. "The other you." She mimed a pair over her eyes. "It was hot."
He managed to look even more pained. Her grin broadened.
And it was cruel, or at least very mean. He wasn't responsible for any of this - the hormones and the constant need to pee, the restricted off-world travel - not even a little bit, and yet, somehow she felt quite within her rights to blame him for it, anyway.
And torture him accordingly.
Looking equal parts disgusted and resigned, he collected his laptop bag from the corner of her lab and held up a hand. "I have to go."
"I know. Take care of yourself, Rodney."
She was still smiling a little in amusement, and was right up until the moment he turned and came at her.
"McKay!" she protested as soon as he released her.
"First base," he said, entirely too pleased with himself. "Oh, and," she was still too busy considering violence to avoid it when he gave her belly a brief, uncomfortable pat, "goodbye to you, too."
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: baby names
I've given it some thought, and here is a list of unacceptable names:
Madison - my sister used it already.
Jeannie, Emma, Margaret, Ruth - relatives I'd prefer didn't think I like them.
Michelle, Jane, Joanna, Yu-Li, Karen, Nadia - old girlfriends.
Anything else is fine.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Re: baby names
Meredith is such a pretty name for a girl, don't you think?
*
To: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr Rodney McKay
Re: Re: Re: baby names
Cute.
Enjoy childbirth. I hear that's fun.
*
She was giving a presentation in the briefing room when her water broke.
Childbirth was not fun.
*
To: Dr. Rodney McKay
From: Lt. Colonel Cameron Mitchell
Re: Congratulations
Sam's a little busy right now, but I'm under orders to inform you of the following:
- Seven pounds, six ounces.
- Kid's fine, scored a nine on something called the Apgar Test. That's supposed to be good.
- Sam's fine too.
- There's pictures attached.
Hope to see you real soon, McKay.
*
"Hello?"
"Do you think it's wrong to want to zat your own child?"
"Sam?"
"Hi Daniel. How are you?"
"Do... you have a zat gun in the house?"
"That was a joke. Sorry. I'm tired."
The baby was three weeks old and she would not stop crying. Sam wasn't entirely aware of what time it was, or how long it had been since she'd had more than two hours sleep in a row, and she must have sounded as bad as she felt because Daniel seemed fairly concerned as he told her he was coming right over.
She didn't really care. All she knew was that anyone who thought sleep deprivation and loud, constant noise weren't very effective methods of torture had never cared for a newborn.
It wasn't as if she didn't have experience with more conventional forms of torture, either. She was practically an expert on the subject.
When she answered the door, she found not just Daniel, but Teal'c, Vala and Cameron, too. So maybe she had somehow sounded even worse than she felt on the phone.
"It was a joke!" she said. "She's alive and well, as you can hear."
Daniel held something out and dropped them in her palm. Earplugs.
*
She was unconscious for the next twelve or so hours, but apparently events occurred as follows.
Daniel, Vala, and Cameron cleaned, while Teal'c spent approximately three hours convincing a very stubborn infant that drinking from a bottle wasn't the worst thing that had ever happened to anyone.
At some point, General Landry called, wondering where an entire SG team had disappeared to in the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Once he heard what they were doing, he offered to come and help - and when they declined, he had Walter order them all pizza instead.
At some other point, supposedly - because she didn't actually remember any of it - she got up and wandered around her quiet, empty house until she encountered Vala, perched on the washing machine, listening to her (well, probably not her) iPod and flipping through a magazine.
"Oh," she said, hopping down, "you're up. Don't worry, the boys have taken her for a walk." She took Sam by the arm and steered her back towards the bedroom. "Are you hungry? There's plenty of pizza."
But she simply laid back down again and Vala petted her hair until she fell back asleep.
When she woke up properly some hours later, her bathroom and kitchen were sparkling, her fridge was stocked with groceries, and all five loads of laundry she'd been putting off doing we're neatly folded. Meanwhile, her breasts were really sore, but she was actually happy to see her daughter when Daniel rather eagerly passed her over.
He, along with Cameron, Vala and Teal'c, on the other hand, looked as if they'd gone up against a bunch of system lords, the replicators, Anubis, and the Ori, all at once. And lost.
*
To: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr Rodney McKay
Re: scheduled visit
Having made the mistake of telling people I work with about this, I'm now coming to Earth again. Not right now, fate of the galaxy, etc.
See you in a month.
*
"Zelenka," Rodney said as he crossed the threshold and made his way past her. "He's - yes, he's good. Decent scientist, reliable - but he's not me, he's not even you."
"Hi," she said, watching him dither in her front hallway, "Rodney. Come on in."
She turned back to meet the eyes of the airman holding McKay's bag, and got a weary look along with an armful of luggage. "Ma'am," he nodded politely, before escaping back to the car.
She shut the front door and dropped Rodney's things where she stood. He trailed after her as she headed for the baby's room, talking the whole time.
It wasn't until she put the baby in his arms that he shut up.
*
"Well," he said, "this isn't so bad."
*
She really was a beautiful baby - a completely objective assessment on Sam's part. She'd also just started smiling, and was willing to do so for just about anyone. So she lay in McKay's arms, all dimples and sunshine, and it was really no surprise even he was won over.
For around forty-five seconds.
Then she started crying and he quickly handed her back and took two or three large steps away.
Sam was too busy going through the now routine process of breastfeeding to attend to his panic attack, however, leaving him to hover there on the edge of her vision while her daughter nursed hungrily.
"I don't know her name," he said eventually. "What did you pick?"
She looked up to find he had sidled a little closer again. "Alice."
"That's... nice. I guess. Better than Me- a lot of things."
She dropped her head and snickered a little under the guise of arranging the baby blanket.
"Yes, very funny. If you want to talk inappropriate naming conventions, Lewis Carroll was a paedophile last I checked. Do you have anything to eat around here that doesn't come from inside you?"
She looked at him disapprovingly. It had absolutely no affect, so she just rolled her eyes and pointed towards the kitchen instead.
*
And then there was the time she misplaced the baby.
She was on base, because she wanted to pick up the results of Dr Lee's latest simulations for the new hybrid Asgard power cores. Rodney and the baby came with her and they'd been pouring over her computer - they really needed to get him one of his own for these occasions - when Cameron came bounding in the door. Teal'c followed at a more sedate pace.
"Hey, Sam, heard you were here and there she is! There's my girl." He already had the baby out of her carrier and held her up in the air before gathering her in his arms. "McKay," he acknowledged, seemingly as an afterthought, if a rather pointed one.
Rodney cleared his throat, uttered, "Yes, hello." Then hunched back over the screen with grim determination.
He'd never forgiven Cam for threatening him with citrus.
She just watched the two men for a moment - Teal'c standing at Cam's shoulder, smiling down at Alice as she yawned and fussed a little, Cam crooning at her, jouncing her up and down. "Who's the prettiest girl in the world? Have you been giving your mamma hell? Have you? That's my clever girl."
Grinning, she looked back down at the report.
*
Sometimes, when she was working, large amounts of time passed without her having any real sense of it.
But she was pretty sure it hadn't been more than an hour when she looked up suddenly and said, "Where's the baby?"
*
Cameron was at his desk, in his office.
She entered and stared around the room. Then stared at him. "Where's my daughter?"
"Oh," he said. "Yeah, the General dropped by. Apparently, I have too much paperwork to do. Hey, nobody does paperwork like me. I'm a machine. This?" he indicated the form currently under his hand, "could have waited another week."
"So," she just barely restrained the urge to smack him across the head, "Alice is with the General?"
"He totally stole her and gave a bogus reason for it, yes."
She turned and ran right into Rodney, who was hovering in the doorway.
"Come on," she said, pushing him through the door.
*
General Landry put his finger to his lips as they entered. The baby carrier was on his desk, facing him. "Just now drifted off," he hissed.
She moved around the desk to actually see Alice and affirm her continued existence. Seeing her daughter's sleeping face, a tightly wound thread of fear in her chest uncoiled and she felt as if she was breathing for the first time in ten minutes.
"Carolyn always wanted 'Rock-a-Bye Baby', a real traditionalist," the General informed them, sotto voice. "This little girl? 'Hickory Dickory Dock'. Does the trick every time."
The commander of the base that was Earth's first defence against enemies too numerous to count was singing her daughter nursery rhymes.
"Sorry, Sir," she said, "I'll just take her and -"
He stopped her as she reached for the handles. "No no, she's fine. Leave her, I'm sure you and Dr McKay have work to do. I'll call if she wakes up. And don't worry, should anything happen, Teal'c is out there pretending he has a reason for being in the briefing room."
Teal'c, who had appointed himself Lord Protector of her daughter's safety the day she was born, was indeed lurking in the briefing room, pretending to be reading a file. She sent him a smile through the window. She wasn't exactly going to object; apparently with her for a mother, Alice needed all the help she could get.
McKay, she noticed, had put her between him and Teal'c's line of sight. If he had a grudge against Cam, he was just plain old scared of Teal'c.
"He reminds me of Ronon," he had said when confronted about it. "Do you know how long it took me to stop being afraid he'd just kill me with his bare hands one day for the fun of it? And I'm not responsible for anyone on his team being pregnant. Not that I'm responsible for anyone on Teal'c's team being - I mean I wasn't even there! Is he the kind of person likely to make that distinction?"
"He would never kill you," she'd assured him at the time. Because what good were Rodney's neuroses if she couldn't have a little fun with them. "Hurt you a little, maybe."
With a sigh, Sam turned away from the General, who'd started humming, and collected Rodney on her way out the door. "Thank you, General."
He waved her off as if babysitting was all par for the course. No big deal, just another day at the SGC.
Boy, her job was weird.
*
"How do people be parents?" Rodney asked, as they stood waiting for the elevator.
"I'm still figuring that one out."
"It's horrible."
She nodded. "I know! The SGC could come under attack at any minute. It's dangerous here. But then I think, the planet could come under attack at any minute, and if it does, then the SGC is the safest place for her to be. It's completely contradictory."
He stared at her unhappily. "Can we go be scientists again?"
"Oh god, yes."
*
When they made it home that afternoon, Sam realised there were many more adventures in parenting Rodney had yet to experience. So she got right on that.
"You've got to be kidding."
"Not really."
"This is disgusting. There's something seriously wrong with an entire portion of the population who can't take care of their own bodily functions. Humans should be born fully functional, like horses, or fish."
"Yes. It's definitely the eleven week old who has the problem, here. Now, you powder."
"Powder what? Why is this so complicated?"
She patted his back. "You're doing fine. It's changing a diaper, not astrophysics."
"Yes, well, I'm pretty sure that's the problem."
"The sticky things need to be tight, but not too tight."
"'Sticky things'?"
"And you're done."
"I'm done? I'm done! I did it! Well, clearly, I'm a genius."
"Oh, you're something."
He was too busy beaming at her, and the baby, and his own brilliance, to register the sarcasm.
It was... sort of cute.
"Hey," she said, smiling in spite of herself, "you know, I appreciate this. You really don't have to be here, or really have anything to do with this and -"
His face had been falling rapidly as she spoke and he suddenly blurted out, "I hate children!"
"Okay," she replied dubiously.
"They're tiny," he said, "and weird. And you can't employ anything approaching logic with them. I mean, this one's all right so far, but the fact that she represents some sort of legacy which, unlike my life's work, I have absolutely no control over but that people will look at and for some reason associate with me - frankly, it's incredibly disturbing. What if she likes loud, popular music, or ponies, or... other children?"
"I can almost guarantee that she will."
"And that doesn't bother you?"
She shrugged. "Actually, I'm more worried she'll go into the soft sciences."
She wasn't, of course, it was just fun egging him on. For a moment she thought he might have a stroke but then he collected himself admirably.
"You see, this is my point. I don't like children, I don't... feel any sort of obligation to this one, morally and certainly not financially. If it was anyone else who came to me and said 'hey, you knocked me up in an alternate reality' - but it wasn't anyone else, it was you and..." He hesitated, gesturing widely. "That's why I'm here. Not because I'm a good, decent person, because I'm mostly not. I'm not selfless or patient, or generous. I shouldn't be anyone's father. It's a good thing it was that other guy - I bet he was all those things. Probably why you -"
"I felt bad for him, Rodney," she cut him off. "Really, really bad for him."
"What, it was like pity sex?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
"Right, of course, pity sex - last resort of pathetic losers everywhere."
"You, I don't feel sorry for at all."
He paused, clearly disappointed. "Not even a little?"
She laughed. And then she kissed him.
"Oh," he said, moments later, "you don't pity me - that's a good thing!" His hand slid around the back of her head and this time he kissed her. "That means I win."
"You win?"
"You like me better than him. Don't ruin this for me by getting all indignant or feminist or whatever."
At least, she rationalised, when he was kissing her, he wasn't talking. It was the best reason for wrapping an arm around his neck and slipping him the tongue she could think of. But not the only one.
It was different than kissing the other Rodney. For one thing, this Rodney, her Rodney, kept stopping and staring at her in apparent wonder before diving back in with enthusiasm.
He was, she quickly found, very enthusiastic.
She only just remembered to keep one hand on Alice's little body to ensure she didn't roll off the change table while Mommy was busy making out with Daddy.
"Rodney," she mumbled between kisses, as one of this hands slid under her top and up her back, and the other was heading in a similar direction, only more towards her front. "Alice."
"Who? Oh."
She turned her head and looked down. They were being regarded seriously by a pair of big blue eyes.
Rodney took his hand off her breast. "And when is her bedtime, exactly?"
*
He'd been occupying her house for five days, and the driver had returned to take him back. Once she got him out of her bed, and suggested he put on pants - which was kind of pushing the extent to which she was willing to accommodate him - she went and got Alice from her crib and held her out to him.
"Here, say goodbye."
He took her, holding her against his chest and frowning down at her little face, all scrunched up in sleep. "I like her," he said. "I didn't think I would."
"You can come back and see her whenever you want."
"And you? I assume that would be okay, since -"
"Oh, sure," she shrugged, hiding a smile. "Since we're kind of a package deal these days."
"Should we get married? I'm just asking, because -"
"No."
"Fine, that's fine. But you know, if you wanted to -"
"Rodney."
"Fine."
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: The future welfare of our child.
Children who live in father-absent households are far more likely to be incarcerated, become drug addicts, and drop out of school.
Something to think about.
Rodney
P.S. While I, and the many people here in Atlantis who apparently have nothing better to do than make stupid noises over baby pictures all day, do appreciate the constant stream of happy snaps, I think it's safe to say that by now everyone in the Pegasus Galaxy has seen the one of me passed out on the couch in my boxer shorts with Alice asleep on my chest. We're all in agreement; it's the most adorable thing anyone's ever seen. You can stop sending it every single time, thanks.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Your future sex life.
I feel I should inform you that your chances of getting laid the next time you're on Earth shrink exponentially every time you associate single motherhood with criminal, drug addict children.
P.S. Glad you're enjoying the baby pictures. I made sure to send along a few more of my favourite shot - in these ones you can actually see who's drooling more, you or the baby.
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: Understood.
It's a well known fact that married men live longer than unmarried men.
I think Alice deserves to have a paternal influence in her life as long as possible, don't you?
Rodney
P.S. You're not the only one who knows how to work a camera. I thought you might be interested, so I'm sending you a copy of the picture I've been using as my screensaver the past few months. You're a really sound sleeper, did you know that?
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: I know where you live, McKay
Dear Rodney,
Your life expectancy should be the least of your worries, seeing as how you're already a dead man.
Lots of love,
Sam
*
To: Lt. Colonel Samantha Carter
From: Dr. Rodney McKay
Re: Oh please.
I'm approximately two million light years away, surrounded by very large Marines, Teyla, and Ronon. Sheppard doesn't count, I don't think I can trust him under these circumstances.
Back at you baby,
Rodney
P.S. We're still getting married.
*
To: Dr Rodney McKay
From: Lt Colonel Samantha Carter
Re: Sure
If we can manage to spend a week occupying the same solar system, I'm all yours.
P.S. Alice is teething. You can have her, too.
*
She never should have underestimated McKay's ability to achieve something once he put his mind to it. Much as she liked to malign, it was a fairly impressive mind.
Nor should she have doubted his ability to hold her to one measly sarcastic comment.
He'd changed, living in Atlantis. Mostly - and if pressed she would grudgingly admit it - not for the worse.
*
The honeymoon was in Vegas. It lasted exactly sixteen hours and thirty three minutes before they were both beamed aboard the Odyssey. Something to do with saving the planet.
Teal'c was babysitting at the time, Alice was perfectly safe. Sam eventually remembered this and was suitably comforted.
(She forgave her own momentary memory lapse - being beamed aboard a battlecruiser on full alert while wearing nothing but a sheet tends to be one hell of a distraction.)
The end.