Farewell to Stargate Atlantis Ficathon
Title: Scenes From a Mall
Author: linziday
Rating: Gen, PG13 (some minor swearing and the destruction of classic toys)
Characters: Team
Disclaimer: I don't own SGA. I don't own any of the places or purchases described herein. I own a computer that may or may not be on its last legs. That is all.
Prompts: Written for live_brave , who asked for humor, lots of team goodness, and the line "If you'd told me ten years ago that this is how it would turn out, I would've died laughing." Didn't want character deaths, angst or John and Rodney being the only ones allowed to save the day. I think I hit it all. . . but you have to count fetching food as "saving the day." Which I do. :)
Notes: Thanks to writerjc and seramercury for the fast and fabulous beta!
Spoilers: Season 5 casting
Summary: The team at a Colorado shopping mall. (I'm sorry.)
Word count: 2,200
Rodney hated everything about this trip. Stupid. Boring. Pointless in a way that made his skin crawl. Next time the IOA insisted on a face-to-face report, they could damn well come to Atlantis for it. Or, better yet, not and just leave them the hell alone.
Three days of back-to-back meetings had made him cranky.
And now this.
“C’mon, McKay,” Sheppard said, tapping the back of Rodney’s heel with one of his crutches, an attempt to prompt him forward through the glass double doors. “We promised them.”
“You promised them,” Rodney corrected, not moving because he knows, just knows they won’t get out of this alive. Or even sane. “I was off trying to explain the intricacies of interdimensional travel to Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dumbass when you hatched this little escape plan.”
“It’s only for a couple of hours.” Sheppard’s lips twitched and he did the tapping thing again, and Rodney ignored him again even though he could feel the impatience of the small horde behind them. A man grumbled, “Damn tourists,” but no one pushed him through the door or out of the way. Ronon’s imposing presence tended to make people. . . polite.
Rodney turned to face Sheppard. “These ‘couple of hours’ you so carelessly toss away are hours I could be using to work or sleep or -”
“Rodney.” Sheppard gave him a significant look. “Ronon and Teyla needed to get out of there for a little while.”
Well. Yes. Okay. Rodney could certainly understand that. He really, really could. But - “The mall, Sheppard? Seriously. Shopping?”
Which is when, with a grunt, Ronon shouldered past Sheppard and lifted Rodney into the air. Rodney barely had time to let out indignant squawk before Ronon deposited him clear of the door. Someone in the crowd cheered. Ronon gave him a no-hard-feelings slap on the back and Teyla offered him an indulgent smile as they disappeared through the doors. The rest of the small crowd surged forward and swept inside, like a wave.
Sheppard patted him on the shoulder in a way that might have seemed sympathetic if not for the smirk that went with it. “Sorry, buddy, looks like we’re staying.” He held his cast-encased foot against the door, keeping it open for Rodney. “But, hey, we won’t have to run for our lives from life sucking vampires.”
Rodney rolled his eyes and reluctantly shambled through the entryway. “We should be so lucky.”
*****
Truth was, Rodney didn’t mind the mall. Or at least hadn’t minded it pre-Atlantis. He shopped like he worked - ignored people, ranted at anyone who dared cut in front of him, and basically turned the trip into a rousing game of intimidate-the-minions.
It worked for him.
He’d returned to Earth a few times since, on vacation or for the SGC, always with a list of things people had begged/bribed him to buy and bring home to Atlantis. But that was the problem: Atlantis was home. Earth felt more and more alien to him every time he returned, and nothing felt more alien than the mall. The lines were too long and the air too stale and the crowds too loud - Where did all these people come from anyway? Didn’t they have homes? - and the lights were too bright and electric and wrong.
Everything felt wrong.
“Here we go, first stop,” Sheppard said cheerfully, his crutches clacking to a stop in front of a window display of giant crayons and colorful building blocks. “Toy store.”
Rodney raised an eyebrow at Sheppard while Ronon and Teyla went inside. “Toys?”
Sheppard nodded, looked serious. “For Torren.”
“Uh huh,” Rodney said, unconvinced as they followed their teammates into the store and began meandering through the aisles. At least Rodney thought they were meandering.
“Teyla asked to come.”
“I’m sure.”
“She wanted to bring him back a stuffed bear like the one Sam had gotten for - ” Sheppard halted in the middle of the aisle. “Oh, look,” he said with delight and no surprise whatsoever. “Cars.”
*****
It took them 20 minutes to get kicked out of the toy store. Looking back, Rodney was astonished it was that long.
But really, if they didn’t want customers to try out the mega-expensive remote control cars, they shouldn’t have made the packaging so easy to open. And also? Placing the batteries close by was just asking for trouble.
Besides, it wasn’t just him and Sheppard. Though he had to say he was impressed all over again by Ronon’s aim. Blasters and knives were one thing. He didn’t know Nerf balls could do that much damage.
Sheppard bought the pair of radio-controlled cars, a super deluxe Nerf set for Ronon and not one but two teddy bears, appeasing mall security enough that they were allowed to stay in the mall. Just not in this store any longer, thank you very much, sirs, please leave now.
“Hey, where’d Teyla go?” Rodney asked when their “escort” left them at the toy store door.
“Said something about finding a quiet place to be alone,” Ronon said, taking the bags from Sheppard so he could maneuver the crutches.
They began weaving their way through the crowd. “Alone?” Rodney waved his hand at the crowd, incredulous. “Here?”
“Probably not so much ‘alone’ as ‘away,’” Sheppard said. When Rodney looked at him quizzically Sheppard added, “I’m pretty sure none of these people just decapitated a whole village of Barbies, Rodney.”
“Hey! Not my fault. If Ronon hadn’t knocked the display over and you, Cheaty McCheat, hadn’t made that highly illegal U-turn, I never would have driven over - ” Rodney glanced to his right and stopped short. Shiny. Shiiiiiiny. “I’ll be. . . you know. . . bye.” He waved distractedly over his shoulder and wandered into the world of glass, chrome and plastic.
“Oh great,” he heard Sheppard say with a heavy sigh.
“Computers?” Ronon asked. “Better than ours?”
“No,” Sheppard said. “Apple.”
*****
It took them a full 30 minutes to get kicked out of the Apple store.
Again, not his fault.
Except for the thing with the Lego Star Wars demo. Because yes, yes, okay, that was him. But, really, it was obviously broken if he - hello, smartest man in two galaxies! - couldn’t get Lego Luke Skywalker to stop walking into walls. They should have been thrilled with his reprogramming.
He could see why, though, they weren’t so happy when Sheppard tapped into the sound system with a display iPod. Johnny Cash isn’t exactly music to shop by.
And Ronon with unfettered Internet access? Well.
It took the purchase of four iPod Touches, two MacBook pros and a copy of Lego Star Wars (“For Madison!” Rodney insisted loudly over Sheppard’s snickers.) to keep them in the mall and out of handcuffs. This time Rodney paid.
When they left the store, Rodney found himself carrying both his bags and Sheppard’s. “Wait. Where’s Ronon?”
“‘Quiet place to be alone,’” Sheppard recited.
“Wonderful.” Rodney shifted the bags for a better grip. He paused, looked up thoughtfully and asked, voice pitched low so he wouldn’t be overheard, “Should we be worried that our shopping habits are so bad that a pair of aliens are embarrassed by us?”
Sheppard laughed so hard he whooped and wheezed, hunched over almost double, and Rodney couldn't help laughing along with him.
*****
“Lindt chocolate?” Sheppard asked, lifting a crutch to point to the store to their right. Then the one to their left. “Or Godiva?”
Rodney rolled his eyes. “Please. Do you not know me at all?”
“Right.” Sheppard began moving through the crowd. “Both it is.”
*****
“Clothing store?” Rodney asked, running his finger down the mall map at Customer Service.
Sheppard snorted.
“Books?” Rodney asked.
“Have one, thanks.”
Rodney winced even as he heard himself say, “You want the sporting goods store, don’t you?”
Sheppard beamed at him. “Well, if you insist.”
*****
“Wait, Rodney, was that Ronon in Brookstone?”
“No. Keep walking.”
“But in the massage chair? I could have sworn -”
“Sheppard, for the love of god, keep walking.”
*****
Rodney spotted an empty table, but it was Sheppard who wove through the crowd first, his man-on-crutches routine doing more to clear a path than Rodney’s cursing. When they got to the table, Rodney dropped the bags on the ground and collapsed into a chair.
“I need Cinnabon and I need it now,” Rodney said.
Sheppard nodded his agreement but made no move to get up from his own chair.
“Hypoglycemia,” Rodney reminded him.
“Broken ankle,” Sheppard reminded him.
Rodney snorted. “Yes, which you got how, exactly, Colonel? Saving the universe? Big battle with lots of bad guys, was it?”
Sheppard at least had the grace to look chagrined. “I’m telling you, the gateroom floor didn’t look that wet.”
In the end, neither of them had to get up. Ronon appeared a moment later and Rodney thrust a $20 bill at him with instructions to “hand it to those nice people over there behind the counter and they will give you food.”
“I know how money works, McKay,” Ronon said, pocketing the twenty. “Give me another ten.”
Rodney grumbled but handed it over. “Get extra frosting!” he called out as Ronon slipped into the crowd, dreads in contrast to the black-clad Goth teens, soccer moms and tourists around him.
Sheppard caught Rodney’s eye and grinned.
“What?” Rodney asked, feeling a little like he missed a punch line. And the joke.
Sheppard’s grin got even bigger. “You know, if you'd told me ten years ago that this is how it would turn out, I would've died laughing.”
“Which part?” Rodney’s own smile twitched on his lips. He hadn’t seen Sheppard this relaxed, truly relaxed and not that fake slacker attitude, in a very long time.
“All of it,” Sheppard admitted. “Beheaded Barbie dolls, frantic store clerks.” His eyes glinted with amusement as they flicked toward Cinnabon. “The part where you gave Ronon thirty bucks to buy cinnamon sticks and actually think any of that food’s going to make it back to the table.”
Rodney was up and racing toward Cinnabon as the first strains of Sheppard’s laughter rang through the food court.
*****
When Rodney returned with Ronon (and the food), Teyla was sitting at the table, chatting with Sheppard. Rodney slid into his own seat, immediately fending off attacks.
“Mine, mine, mine,” he said, slapping Sheppard hand as he grabbed for Rodney’s side cinnamon bun.
Teyla looked up and raised an eyebrow. “So that is how Torren learned that.”
It took a little fast and dirty math and more trading than Rodney liked (“No, one side container of frosting does not equal a whole cinnamon bun. It just doesn’t.”) but within a few minutes everyone was happily munching on their food.
“We should bring this recipe back to the city,” Teyla said, dipping a stick into the frosting.
“I don’t think they’d give it to us,” Sheppard said. “But we could bring back some cinnamon and sugar, ask the mess to make something.”
“We made a cake on Athos that tasted similar. I believe Kanaan still remembers how if there is interest in trying them.”
“Had donos bars on Sateda. More spice but kinda close. Think I could make them,” Ronon offered.
Sheppard leaned back in his chair. “I have one word for you kids: snickerdoodles.”
The conversation went on, winding around food and family recipes and family and the city. And somewhere between Teyla’s latest story about Torren and Sheppard’s anecdote about a disastrous attempt at baking a birthday cake for his college girlfriend, Rodney suddenly realized he felt . . . content.
Rodney never felt content outside Atlantis.
But here, in the middle of a mall, in the middle of the homeworld he hadn’t called home in years, he was content.
The difference was he was here with Sheppard and Ronon and Teyla.
“Rodney? Hey, buddy, you okay?”
He blinked and looked up. His teammates were looking at him with concern. Sheppard bumped his shoulder lightly with his.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good,” Rodney said. He reached to swipe a cinnamon stick from Sheppard’s tray and smiled. “I was just thinking this trip wasn’t so bad.”