Epiphanies (SGA - team gen, John-centric)

[sholio]

Epiphanies ~ team gen (John-centric), Search & Rescue tag, 2500 wds
For kristen999 at fandom_stocking. Originally posted here at fandom_stocking.




"I'm in charge," Rodney said, and flopped down theatrically across John's feet.

"Ow."

Rodney's head popped up. His hair was sticking up in all directions, like the fur of a cat that had been brushed the wrong way. "Oh. Right. The whole recovering-from-surgery ... yeah. Sorry."

John put his book aside. "Look, obviously the place hasn't blown up yet, so you must be doing something right."

"Yes, but not for lack of trying!" Rodney looked wild-eyed. "I mean, everyone else trying, not me! Well, me too, occasionally. John, I am going to fuck this up so bad that it's not even funny, and you know it."

"No, you aren't. It's not like you've never done this before," John pointed out. "We ran this place for almost two months after --" He shied away very fast from finishing that sentence, and amended it to something that was less emotionally fraught. "While we were waiting for Carter to be confirmed and arrive for her official appointment." He frowned. "How's she handling this?"

The Rodney McKay that John had first met in Antarctica would have looked at him blankly, or waved his hand and dismissed the whole idea that Sam might have thoughts and feelings beyond lust for him. This Rodney, the one who'd grown to be one of his closest friends, frowned and considered the question. "She's okay. Upset, I guess. I mean, she can't say so, because the only times we've been able to talk have been over the official databursts. But I think she's pretty ticked off, and I don't blame her."

"What they did to her sucked," John said.

"Yeah."

They mulled that over in silence for a while.

"Well," Rodney said briskly, straightening up, "guess it's back to the salt mines."

John squinted up at him. "You're leaving? You didn't come in here to ask for advice, or something?"

"What?" Rodney said. "No."

"So you just came in here to whine, basically."

Rodney scowled at him. "Well, I certainly don't come in here to be insulted, you know."

John gave him an innocent, shit-eating grin. "Where do you usually go to be insulted?"

"Fine, that's it, I'm going back to Eliza -- Cart -- my office, and don't come crying to me if you need my expert advice on something." Rodney started to leave, then leaned back in. "Uh, you need me to bring you anything from your quarters? Yell at any nurses for you?"

John waved him off. "Nah. I'm good. Thanks, though."

Rodney vanished. John waited until he was definitely gone before breaking out into a grin. The thing was, Rodney did come in here to be insulted, and they both knew it. John was well aware that Rodney was busting his ass trying to do a good job running the city -- another thing the Rodney of five years ago might not have understood -- and he needed a few minutes in the day when he could just relax and be himself without having to worry about a diplomatic incident or a city-sinking disaster hinging on his every decision.

John had been aware for some time that he'd become some sort of weird touchstone for Rodney. He could calm Rodney down just by talking to him, or, depending on necessity, stir him up and motivate him the same way. He didn't consider it some kind of special ability; he just couldn't figure out why other people had so much trouble with it. John knew he didn't get people, in general, but Rodney was pretty transparent.

Actually, so was the rest of his team. Well, except maybe Teyla, but Teyla was so good at figuring out other people that it amounted to the same thing. John wasn't sure how random chance had stuck him with three people who were that easy to read, compared to the entire rest of the world, but at least luck had worked in his favor this once, because it would really suck working with them if they weren't three of the only people who --

-- hmm.

Actually, maybe that was just something that went along with knowing people really well. Maybe it wasn't them. It was him.

That was a weird thought.

"You appear to be having an epiphany, John," Teyla said, approaching his bed at her new, slower walking speed, with a blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. "Would you like me to come back later?"

"What? No ... no. I'm good." He nodded at the blanket. "How's the little guy?"

Teyla's face melted into what John was starting to think of as her new "Mommy" look. It wasn't terribly different from normal Teyla, just a little softer, maybe. "He is sleeping," she said. "Would you like to hold him?"

She was already handing him over, so John took him. "Uh, okay. You know, one of these days I'm gonna drop him."

"No," Teyla said with perfect confidence. "You will not."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that."

"You will not, John," Teyla said. She sounded so bone-deep positive that he looked up at her, and she smiled at him with something vaguely similar to her talking-to-idiots look (she used this one on Rodney and Ronon regularly), but warmer. "You never drop any of us."

"Oh," John said, and at that moment it sunk in, really truly sunk in. Their group had just grown by one. Torren wasn't just an awkward bulge in Teyla's middle; he was a whole new teammate. Forever and ever. He might sort of resemble a stuffed toy at the moment, but he was going to be a person, and Ronon would teach him a hundred ways to kill things and to hide out from things trying to kill him, and Rodney would teach him science, and John would throw footballs for him and show him how to fly things -- "Uh. Maybe you better take the kid."

Teyla did, hastily. "That is your having-an-epiphany face again," she said. "Either that, or you are about to be ill."

"Not gonna be ill," John said, and then clarified, "At least, I don't think so."

"Er ..." Teyla hesitated. "Can I help in any way?"

"No. Not really. I'm good."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," John said quickly. Then he thought about it. "Um, maybe. You remember that conversation we had?"

He waited expectantly, until Teyla apparently realized that he was not going to say anything else, and then she began to frown a bit. "Please help me narrow it down somewhat."

"On the Daedalus."

He realized after a moment or two that this might not have been especially helpful information either, but Teyla was already looking more enlightened, which probably qualified her for some kind of decrypting-your-team-leader award. "Oh," she said. "That conversation. The one in which you --"

"Yeah."

"And I also --"

"Yep."

"Ah," she said. "What about it?"

"Well," John said. "It's just that --" He nodded to the baby in her arms.

"Torren," Teyla supplied after a pause.

John nodded vigorously. "See, it's just that Torren is --"

He had an awful moment when he couldn't get the words out and he was pretty sure she had no idea where he was going either, but then she smiled. "Oh," she said. "Family. Yes? John, that is so -- you."

Torren gurgled.

"This is awkward," John said after a moment.

"Yes; I am fairly sure this is the point where you would be walking away, if you could walk," she pointed out. "However, since you cannot and I can, I will do it for you." She leaned over unexpectedly and kissed him on the forehead. "We shall be back with a tray from the mess hall for dinner. Tonight they are having meatloaf or a casserole made from kiba tubers. Which would you prefer?"

"Uh ... kiba casserole, I guess."

"Rolls?"

"Two."

"Your appetite has certainly rebounded," Teyla said. "You will be back on your feet in no time. I will also bring some of those little chocolate muffins that you like so much, and some cookies for Rodney, as I am sure he will join us at some point." She flashed him a quick smile over her shoulder as she walked away.

John wondered if there was a point at which a group of people could get to know each other too well. He was still pondering this, with his book in his lap, when Ronon walked in.

"Hey."

"Hey."

Ronon slouched down in the chair next to him, took out a knife and a piece of blond wood, and began to nick off small bits of it. Life was so much simpler with Ronon.

"So," Ronon began casually. "Keller."

... damn it.

"You think she's hot?" Ronon asked.

John looked around hastily, but the infirmary was deserted except for one of the nurses doing an inventory of the shelves in the far corner. "You do realize she might hear you, right?"

"She's down in the gym," Ronon said. "I just gave her a stick-fighting lesson."

"Really?" John tried to imagine that. The image that popped immediately into his head involved Keller in skintight black leather, and was really more Debbie Does Dallas than Escape from LA. He closed his eyes quickly for a moment. This sort of thing was never a problem with Carson.

"She asked me to teach her. She's getting better at it." Ronon turned the carving over in his hands. John couldn't tell what it was supposed to be. "I thought for a while she was into me, but now I kinda think probably not. I can't figure out how to tell, though."

"Uh ... I did tell you I was total crap at being married, right?"

"Yeah," Ronon said. "I'm not really ... I guess I'm not asking for advice, okay? I'm just talking."

"Okay," John said.

"Just so we've got that straight."

"Yes," John said. "Totally."

"Okay."

Ronon went back to carving. After he'd worked on it for ten minutes or so, and John had read another paragraph, John finally said, "Have you asked her?"

"Huh?"

"Keller."

"Yeah," Ronon said. "I figured that part out. Asked her what?"

John stared at him. "Oh, I don't know, asked her if she's into you? Admittedly I'm not the world's foremost expert on women, but even I know that it helps if you, you know, talk to them. I mean, I was total crap at being married, but I did manage to actually get married."

Something about Ronon's body language went dark and closed-off. "So did I," he said.

Crap. Double crap. "Sorry, buddy."

Ronon shrugged.

"So, then," John said, feeling his way as if navigating quicksand, "what did you do? I mean, you and -- what was her name? Melena?" Ronon inclined his head in a fractional nod. "You and Melena must have -- talked, and well, courted, and so forth."

"My mother did most of it."

John blinked at him. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean, it was arranged when we were little kids. We were modern kids, of course, so we didn't wait, like you're supposed to. We hadn't had the wedding yet, but we already lived together." Ronon's gaze went down to the birchwood-colored lump in his lap. "We were lucky; we really liked each other. Not everyone had that. But, yeah; my mom talked to her mom and her clan chieftain, and her mom paid my family the standard price, and it was done. Your people don't do things the same; I know that already."

"Nooooo ...." John said. Ronon never talked this much about himself. He was simultaneously afraid of breaking the spell, and sort of hoping that Ronon would wind down and stop talking spontaneously.

"Melena was a doctor," Ronon said, turning over the half-carved lump of wood with his long fingers. "And blonde, and young, and pretty. I've thought about ..." He fell silent, considering the carving. If it was supposed to be Keller, John really didn't want to know. It looked like a rabbit. Or maybe a slice of pizza. "I don't know," he said sharply, and looked up at John. "I can't tell, if it's that, or -- What do you think?"

"I think there's a reason we don't have these conversations," John said with perfect honesty.

"Yeah. I know."

"I also think ..." John gritted his teeth, wound himself up and went for broke. "I think if she's the right one, buddy, then she's worth talking to even if it's not the done thing, and whatever you say will be okay. And if she's not, then, hell, better to figure it out now than after you go through two years of divorce lawyers. There's worse things than embarrassing yourself in front of a girl."

Teyla would probably never have believed him capable of it. Neither would Rodney. The thing was, both of them were the emotive ones. He was able to just lie back and let them do all the heavy lifting, which was, frankly, pretty damn nice, and a hell of a lot more than he got with most people. But Ronon wasn't that way. And while 90% of the time that made him more relaxing to be around than either of the other two, there were also those times when John just had to man up and throw himself on the emotional grenade.

Actually, in some sense, each of his teammates brought out a different side of him. He wasn't sure if he'd ever been this grounded, this in touch with himself before.

... and, whoa, that was another epiphany, wasn't it? Was there some kind of ... surgeon general's maximum of those in one day, or something?

"Thanks," Ronon said. He sounded a little startled.

"I really don't think we should have these conversations without beer."

Ronon half-grinned. "Bring you one."

"Yeah, no, the nurses would yell at me, and right now they can make my life a living hell, so I'd rather not antagonize them."

Ronon's grin was wider now, and he went back to carving on whatever it was that he was making. John worked on the next paragraph of the book, but it felt more comfortable to let his head flop over to the side and drowse for a while. He was, after all, convalescing. He'd damn well earned this.

Every time he woke up, Ronon was still there, carving peacefully. Once, he looked up, noticed John watching him sleepily, and patted John on the leg. "Go back to sleep," he said, and John did.

He woke up again when Teyla showed up with not just one tray of food, but two trays piled high, like she thought she was feeding an army rather than one slightly sickly team leader. Then she lay on the bed next to John's, with Torren in the crook of her body, picking things off Ronon's tray. And when Rodney finally, inevitably, showed up, well, there was enough to go around.

~

Comments

[starwatcher]

.
This is a beautiful story. I love the evaluations of each character, and how they bring out different facets of John's personality. But best of all, that he recognizes that. Great teamy goodness!
.

[sholio]

Thank you very much! I do love my team. :)

[skeddy_kat]

What a wonderful look at John! I loved the way they all care for each other. John being self-aware is adorable. I miss them all so much. Thank heavens for all you writers!

[sholio]

Thank you! I think John's gotten a lot more self-perceptive since he's been dealing with Atlantis, but he's terribly cute when he figures things out. :D

[lastscorpion]

This is terrific! I really enjoyed reading it. My favorite line was "That is your having-an-epiphany face again," she said. "Either that, or you are about to be ill." Yay!

[sholio]

Thank you! :) Poor John -- all those epiphanies in one day can't be good for him!