East Coast Gazette

The scientific mission to P3X-445 is boring and rainy and incredibly embarrassing for assorted reasons that Rodney would rather not get into but–depressingly–include a midget, three small horse-like creatures, and one unplanned musical performance. Rodney’s grouping them all under “cultural misunderstandings” mostly to avoid having to explain how the ceremonial midget had gotten into his ceremonial robes. Not for the first time, Rodney heaves a sigh and is grateful that usually, Colonel Sheppard doesn’t have a violent case of the stomach flu for these sorts of things and is in that case the natural choice for suffering through such indignities.

“And that is why,” Rodney concludes, watching Elizabeth’s mouth twitch, “I will never, never, never go back to P3X-445.”

“That is why you are banned from ever returning to P3X-445,” Elizabeth corrects.

“They are essentially the same thing,” Rodney argues.

“All right,” Elizabeth allows, laughing. She waves her hand. “Go, I know you must be worried about Colonel Sheppard by now.”

Rodney blinks at her and tries to hide his flush. Zelenka thinks that Rodney’s crush on Sheppard is one of those secrets that’s only a secret from John but Rodney likes to think that Zelenka is wrong, wrong, wrong. Rodney is never having a drunken heart to heart with Zelenka again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says stiffly, and stands up. “Is the Colonel in the infirmary or–?”

“Sheppard’s been released to ambulate freely,” Elizabeth says cheerfully. “And not a moment too soon. I heard rumors of arson being threatened.”

“Well,” Rodney says fondly, and Elizabeth laughs some more while waving him off, saying:

“Go, go! Far be it for me to keep you.”

Rodney spends the entire walk down to Sheppard’s room promising to be less obvious in the future, and also to superglue Zelenka to his lab stool, that rat-bastard Czech snitch.

He knocks but waits maybe three seconds before walking in, this is partly because he and Sheppard have an understanding and partly because deep in his heart, Rodney might want to walk in on Sheppard jerking off. It’s probably more the latter than the former.

But instead of either falling into line with resigned expectation and reading a book or playing with himself and inviting Rodney to join in, Sheppard is curled up in a dark bundle under the covers, a tuft of hair sticking out from beneath his comforter and Rodney can’t help the smile that spreads across his face. He hates finding things like this charming but it’s Sheppard and he can’t help it–and against his better judgment, he takes a few steps forward and peers over Sheppard’s shoulder. Rodney’s watched Sheppard sleep off-world and it’s almost as delicious an indulgence as caramel Ho-Hos and anyway, John will never know–

At least that’s what Rodney thinks for like, the whole six milliseconds until bright, furious hazel eyes snap open and he shouts, “Woah! Hey!” before a pillow is shoved into his face and a woman’s voice is saying, eerily calm:

“Look who finally decided to come home.”

>>>>

The scientific mission to P3X-445 is boring and rainy and incredibly embarrassing for assorted reasons that Rodney would rather not get into but–depressingly–include a midget, three small horse-like creatures, and one unplanned musical performance. Rodney’s grouping them all under “cultural misunderstandings” mostly to avoid having to explain how the ceremonial midget had gotten into his ceremonial robes. Not for the first time, Rodney heaves a sigh and is grateful that usually, Colonel Sheppard isn’t carrying the fruit of their love, and ends up taking the midget for the team.

“And that is why,” Rodney concludes, watching Elizabeth’s mouth twitch, “I will never, never, never go back to P3X-445.”

“That is why you are banned from ever returning to P3X-445,” Elizabeth corrects.

“They are essentially the same thing,” Rodney argues.

“All right,” Elizabeth allows, laughing. She waves her hand. “Go, I know you must be worried about Colonel Sheppard by now.”

Rodney’s mouth turns down into a frown. “Why should I be worried? Should I be worried? Oh my God, you gave up on the bed rest didn’t you? Oh my God,” he says, all in one breath, and before he registers the expression on Elizabeth’s face, he’s darting out the door.

“Out of my way, out of my way, expectant father coming through,” he snaps, shoving horrified lab techs and some people he doesn’t really recognize out of the way as he barrels down the hallways to Sheppard’s bedroom–their bedroom again as soon as she stops being broken up with him. He finds, when he bullies the door open, Jane curled up beneath a dark comforter, a tuft of hair sticking out and finds himself giving a grateful sigh to see her resting, at least. Jane had mostly stopped slapping him every time he came near her so Rodney took his chance and crept up on the bed, knees on either side her adorably weird feet and said:

“Miss me? Does the baby feel smart yet?”

Which was exactly when instead of the standard right-handed slap, Rodney got punched in the face and slammed into the ground.

>>>>

Between the shouting and recrimination and tearing-up and checking to see if his nose was broken and shrieking for Beckett it took Rodney about five minutes to realize that it was a woman—a very, very pregnant woman—who had all but smothered him with a pillow and not a more-feral-than-normal John.

Then, Rodney said, “Oh my God. This has to be against mission regulations!” before the woman yelled, “You bet your God damn ass it is, you stupid breeding bastard!” at which point Beckett showed up and said, “Okay, I thought we discussed how killing Rodney would only be a temporary solution to what is ultimately a long-term problem.”

“Why are people killing me?” Rodney demanded. He pointed at the woman. “Who is that?”

While it wasn’t the first time Rodney ever made a girl cry, he realized he felt about a billion times worse about it this time around than ever before. He couldn’t decide if it was because

(a) She was a thousand months pregnant;

(b) She’d had a look of frozen shock on her face for a moment before she’d bitten her lower lip hard, like she’d wanted to hide it, despite the tears that had started pooling in her eyes, or;

(c) That she made a horrible, choking sobbing noise in the back of her throat for just the barest second before she decked him again.

>>>>

Between the shouting and recrimination and tearing-up and checking to see if his nose was broken and shrieking for Beckett it took Rodney less than thirty seconds, even in between all the predictions of his imminent disfigurement, to realize Jane was nowhere to be found.

That was when the panic set in and he shouted, “Where’s Jane? What have you done with her? She’s carrying our baby—it’s going to be a genius! She’s going to kill you when she gets back! I’ll help!” to which John yelled, “What the fuck, Rodney? You told me that rumor about your crush on me was wrong!” and at which point Beckett finally showed up to say, “All right, Rodney, I thought we discussed how making a sexual advance before you had a discussion with the colonel wasn’t the best plan of action.”

“Who’s making a sexual advance?” Rodney demanded. “I’m a married man, I’ll have you know!” He paused in the face of baffled silence from Beckett and the strange man in the room. “Okay, fine, I’m a married man in the eyes of the people of PX5-345! I drank their fire water and everything!”

Then, Rodney glared and added, “Also, who is the pretty boy hooker in my wife’s room?” which made the man in question raise his eyebrows almost to his attractive, robust hairline.

“Wife?” Beckett said faintly.

“Pretty boy hooker?” the man echoed, sounding vaguely amused. “Rodney, were you struck in the head with anything on that planet?”

Rodney rubbed at his temples. “Is nobody concerned that Colonel Sheppard is missing?”

Beckett stared at him. “No,” he said flatly. “Not particularly.”

“I knew you hated our love,” Rodney hissed.

“I think it’s because I’m in the God damn room, Rodney,” the man said.

“Oh my God,” Rodney gasped, processing the resemblance—the starry hazel eyes, the lazy, seductive smile, the clean, elegant facial features, the utter lack of birthing hips—and thinking briefly that he’d known this sort of thing could happen with reckless Stargate usage before he fainted dead away.

>>>>

TBC